Thank you. I want to ask the Premier what advice can the Premier provide former residential school survivors of Chief Jimmy Bruneau School; are there any options available to these people to receive recognition and compensation for their experience? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. From my understanding, the day school, the residential school settlements, other similar settlements, were all initiated through the courts, through lawsuits, class action lawsuits, and that is the path, I believe, that has been proved most successful over the years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ECE completed a review of the SFA program just in the last Assembly and with the goals to ensure that it was meeting the needs of NWT students to pursue their post-secondary education goals. The changes were in alignment as much of the work that we do, and the new work that we do with the Truth and Reconciliation of Canada Calls to Action, as well as the Report on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, as well as United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, with the aim of better supporting Indigenous students with financial assistance to access post-secondary. And so that led to specific changes being made for northern Indigenous students in the program, which increased the supplementary grant to help with their monthly living expenses and to remove the limit of semesters that can be accessed by students as well, Mr. Speaker.

The SFA program offers monthly living allowance to students through either the supplementary grant or the remissible loan. And just so that everybody is aware, the grants are not repayable to the Government of the Northwest Territories. Remissible loans may be forgiven if a student returns to the NWT after they've completed their schooling but otherwise will be considered repayable. And students who receive the remissible loans must remain within that $60,000 loan limit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to establishing educational bodies that align with regional boundaries of existing treaties and those treaties still under negotiation and work with Indigenous governments to determine the governance of those bodies? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of my tasks, and very exciting and important tasks over the life of this term, is to begin work on the modernization of the Education Act, and that work will be done in collaboration with Indigenous governments and so I could very well see this being part of the conversation.

One of the cautions I would put out there is that the treaties currently under negotiation, that do not yet have boundaries established -- there's some of them -- so we wouldn't know what those would be, and then under, for example Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, the geographies are quite large, so you might end up with very large education bodies that may be deemed kind of unfeasible. And so I look forward to having these conversations when we do review the Education Act. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to working with Indigenous governments, including the Dene Nation, to help them reclaim education to preserve their traditional culture and knowledge so that they pass on from one generation to the next generation for education to be available in their traditional language? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in conversations in communities and with Indigenous governments that happened in the previous Assembly, immersion education was one of the top things that our committee at that time consistently heard about, and so I absolutely expect that this will be a key component of the conversation when we do review the Education Act. But that being said, Mr. Speaker, there is an Indigenous languages and education policy in place today in support of education bodies and welcoming all students within learning environments that centre respect and promote Indigenous world views, culture, and languages in our classrooms.

In addition to that, there's the Indigenous languages and education handbook, which is now being implemented in all schools across the NWT. And this was developed with the guidance of Dene, Metis, Inuvialuit, and NWT Cree, to help inform and guide efforts to Indigenize education. And then there is also the Our Languages curriculum which was released and implemented in our classrooms and is really truly a groundbreaking curriculum in the Northwest Territories and something that the NWT should be very proud of. But I very much look forward to continuing conversations about immersion education across the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to revising the NWT Education Funding Framework away from an inequality-based oriented to a equity-based approach so that small communities can access more educational and wellness programming? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the current school funding framework does distribute funding based on a base level of funding; enrolment-based funding as well; a northern context index, which depends on the location of the school; consumer price increases, as well as targeted funding, for example for inclusive schooling. But I fully expect that the funding formula will also be a huge topic of conversation as we review the Education Act. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of health. Can the Minister commit to improving mental health training and crisis response to mental health coordinators and health centre staff in small communities? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from the Deh Cho. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can commit to the Member to following up with the department to see what training the mental health workers in the Deh Cho riding and communities are receiving and reach out to see if there's future things that they need training with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, and thank you to the Minister for that. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister commit to ensuring that any mental health training provided to health centre staff is also offered to NGOs in the communities that work directly with the public? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I can do is I can check with the department to see what type of outreach training that we do provide to NGOs, or if there's funding dollars available for NGOs to access. Within the communities, like I was saying before, mental health and addictions, there is pots of money for each community to access for the suicide prevention fund. They could be used to -- you know, for training within the community if that's what the community wishes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. Mr. Speaker, we know that many people struggle with addictions, for addictions treatment. Can the Minister describe how often the GNWT makes referrals for treatment based solely on mental health? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have that level of detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from the Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister provide that information to me, and can the Minister commit to multi-year funding agreements for organizations that offer on the land programming? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I know that we have the stats on the territorial wide. When we start going down into smaller communities, it's harder and harder to be able to give numbers because they could -- they're so small that they may identify people. So what I can do is I can provide the information that we do have on what people are going out and if there is addictions or mental wellness is a territory wide. Thank you.

And to the multi-year funding question, you know, in my Minister's statement today, the community wellness and addiction recovery fund, that fund there can be applied through multi-year funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.