Thank you, Member from Mackenzie Delta. Members' statements. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, successive Ministers of MACA over the years have continued to blame the feds on the closing of the funding gap for municipalities. Mr. Speaker, if they moved any faster, it would almost look backwards in my humble opinion. I mean, it's effectively perfunctory at best.

Mr. Speaker, only hiding behind the feds and blaming them is a play book that can only be used so many times. The issue is perennial. We hear it over and over and over again, moving slow, yes, we want to do this. The next page on the Minister's blame book usually has to do with I'm fighting for you as hard as I can at the Cabinet table, so when people like me ask prove it, show me the money, they go, wow, that's Cabinet confidentiality, you know, what happens in Vegas -- oh, sorry, what I mean is what happens in Cabinet stays in Cabinet, Mr. Speaker. We all know how that rolls.

Well, the good news is I read some unedited Hansard the other day, and a Member -- and I want to make sure I get it correctly -- is quoted by saying: My community, like others, struggle with health care issues, education concerns, formula funding for the town of Hay River. The good news, Mr. Speaker, is they might even be in Cabinet, the Member who made that, and even maybe even potentially the better news is they may even be the Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs. One will only tell if Members on this side of the House have an ally there. They will do the work. We'll find out.

In the meantime, our communities, all of them, struggle day-to-day and then you hear that we're going to have to put a 16 percent tax increase to meet the basic needs of our community. Shame. It's terrible. Then they were able to work it down to seven and then to six, and thank goodness, the city of Yellowknife settled on five. My goodness. They're carrying the weight and responsibility of the territorial government.

Mr. Speaker, every one of our communities on this side of the House -- I don't care about yours -- ours, Mr. Speaker, are stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Well, I can tell you right now, we're running out of Pauls, Mr. Speaker. Our towns can only do so much.

I will be expecting under our priority session that Cabinet will come with bended knee and say we will close the gap in three to five years. We will meet that $40 million deficit because we care. Mr. Speaker, by ignoring this, we continue to dump this on municipalities, our communities, our people. Taxpayers are getting tired. We need support from the government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Members' statements.

Good afternoon, colleagues. I would like to share with you some excited things that are happening to further develop the cultural programming in Liidlii Kue Elementary School. Thanks to the school's administration and partners, they were able to secure grants, equipment, and a new garage to store these resources. This helps was a good start, however the lack of transportation in the fall and late spring to have students set fishing nets, go to camp across the river, and to even experience life on the water was challenging. Sometimes, they were able to access local boats but most times they were hard to find, and most local boats were too small to carry out the cultural activities. So the administration sent out an application to Jordan's Principle to see if they would be willing to help purchase a boat big enough to help them offer cultural programming needed in the school. The big selling point was the preservation and revitalization of cultural programming at their school especially after three years of school closures and social distancing from the COVID pandemic.

As the application was going through the process, the Deh Cho Divisional Education Council agreed to help with the delivery of the boat, ongoing maintenance, and boating insurance. Again, the community partners are working together to preserve and promote cultural language and traditions.
I can tell you that I was present when the principal made the announcement at the Christmas feast and everybody was very happy.

I can tell you that in addition the school boat will help with their cultural programming in eight areas. Due to the time, I will ask the clerk to have the rest of this statement be deemed as read and printed in the Hansard. Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

The eight areas are:

1. Assist students with missed opportunities to get out on-the-land/water to experience culturally relevant programming;
2. Assist in teaching students about the area around our community and Deh Cho region;
3. Assist with being able to set fishnets with elders. Also, fish using a rod and reel;
4. Assist the school and community in being able to participate in spiritual gathers and fire feedings;
5. Assist in creating community events and visit culturally significant sites along the Mackenzie River and surrounding area of Fort Simpson;
6. Assist in having our students participate in cultural leadership roles and sharing of learned knowledge;
7. Assist in teaching of the Dene language as our school's Dene Zhatie teacher and Culture Coordinator both participate heavily in the Dene language process and implementation.
8. Assist in building relationships among staff, students, parents, and community partners in part of our dedication to the Truth and Reconciliation process.

Members' statements. Return to oral questions. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me good and great pleasure to recognize Mr. Mark Heyck. He is the current executive director of Arctic Energy Alliance, a very important organization to our whole territory on helping people live better and more efficiently and fighting many of the challenges of our environmental impacts that we're making. As well as he's also, I'd like to acknowledge, a former city councillor and a former city mayor of our great community of Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize my CA again, Myrtle Graham. I will acknowledge that she was the former CA for Minister Schumann and CA for the former MLA Robert Bouchard, so. I'd also like to recognize Stacy Barns who was my official agent and campaign manager during the campaign. Thank you.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd also like to rise and recognize Mr. Mark Heyck who was the first person who teach me how to door knock and look where it got me, so thank you for that. As well as being my mother's last former employer before her retirement. So thank you.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. If we missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to your Chamber. I hope you are enjoying the proceedings. It's always nice to see people in the gallery.

Acknowledgements. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today's questions will be directed to the Minister of Housing. So I'd like to start off by explaining -- or a little preamble to my question.

Recently I got asked, as many Members in Yellowknife here, to help the selection process of board members for the Yellowknife Housing Authority. It also came with a letter to inform us that the housing policy only allows people to be appointed to two terms on the board to up to a maximum of six years. Times have changed, Mr. Speaker, whereas many people are no longer interested in serving boards, and it's a struggle of getting people to do that. That said, I'd like to specifically ask the Minister what can she do to adjust the policy to open it up to allow people to continue beyond their two-term limit as prescribed in the NWT Housing policy? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Housing NWT.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can consult with Housing NWT operation staff and the president to see if we can revise the policy for local housing associations.

Thank you, Minister of Housing NWT. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's been in the news recently that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs was recently ordered by the Information and Privacy Commissioner to provide disclosure to an access request. And I use the term "recently" loosely because they were six months behind their deadline.

Can the Minister -- respecting the privacy of the parties involved, can the Minister tell us why there was such an egregious delay in getting one of our citizens access to the information they rightfully deserve? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All I can tell you is on behalf of MACA, we have two staff that deal with access to information and they address those in the timely manner that they come in, and they work hard to try to get those processed through to get to the other departments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, are these two full-time access to information and protection privacy coordinators, or are they -- do they have other duties in the department? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MACA has two dedicated positions solely dealing with ATIPP requests. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is that enough given the slow response time and the increase in requests; is two enough? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a very good question. As I stated, speaking to my department they work hard to get those timelines achieved based on the two staff that they have and look forward to more discussion if need be. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.