Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank you to my colleague from Nunakput for painting a picture, you know, life on the ground in Tuk.
We as the Standing Committee of Social Development had the opportunity to be hosted in the community of Tuktoyaktuk by the Member in June of this year. And what we saw was a school gymnasium that was not useable by community members because it was literally the entire gym was covered in a tarp in order to protect the work that was going on underneath it. But that meant that kids weren't allowed to use it. My perspective on this project is different because I serve a lot of the contractors that are doing some of the work on it from down here. And so my experience with this goes back to the beginning of this Assembly. This is a project that was awarded by government before we were all here. And it's still not done. We -- this -- it was awarded in the 19th Assembly. There were delays, yes, with COVID, but there were issues with this that were raised to myself that were then raised to the Minister of Infrastructure years ago. And I'm sitting here looking at an email right now that says to me, you know, staff from infrastructure were travelling to the community of Tuktoyaktuk almost exactly a year ago. And things haven't changed. Things -- the school is still not done. And when we were there in June, one of the saddest piece of that was what was portrayed to the committee as far as how this has had an impact on the attendance of schools in the community.
And a lot of times when -- especially when you're younger, gym is your favorite -- it's your favorite class. It's what excites kids. You know, math isn't exciting for everybody, but gym generally is. It's also an area that communities use in order to bring communities together and that has been removed from the community of Tuktoyaktuk who has just experienced a tremendously challenging year. And so having a school out of play for, you know -- and a project like this on the books and having a school kind of taken apart for years and years and years, we're not just talking about, you know, a delay to contractors; we're talking about a complete shift and a complete change to the fabric of a community. And that's a huge, huge deal. And so, you know, the Minister responded to the Member's questions in regards to schedule, but I'd like to know what was the initial budget for this, what has been spent to date, and of this money that is in this capital budget, what portion of that is specifically for Mangilaluk School in Tuk? Thank you.