Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very simple question. Can the Minister please tell me how many staff work in the planning, research, and evaluation part of corporate management? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I have a headquarters number of 38. And sorry, the policy planning -- sorry, planning, research, and evaluation is seven.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing further.

Any further comments? I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the department is undertaking an inventory of its land reserves. Can the Minister speak to what the objective of that inventory is. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, when looking at the priorities of this entire Assembly, each department was tasked with seeing themselves in all of our priorities. And so for starters, with our looking for available land, we are specifically looking for is there ways that we can contribute to the intent to build more affordable housing in the territory. And I would also say that I am in addition to that also kind of keeping a lens on what might work well for future sites for early learning and child care centres. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. Well, as -- and I know that the -- for instance, the federal government has made this commitment to develop public land for housing, which I think every -- every Canadian hopes to bear fruit, including those in the North of 60. When it comes to housing, teacher housing is a major issue, particularly in the small communities. I think the Minister's kind of opened the door a bit to this with her response. So do we have a game plan for how to address the urgent need for quality and affordable housing for teachers in the rural and remote communities in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am lucky enough to serve on Cabinet with a housing Minister who also calls one of our small communities home and is also very passionate about making sure that the teachers who live in her community and in other communities in the Northwest Territories have a place to lay their head so that they can provide quality education to our students. So the Minister and myself have already begun to have meetings about how we can work together to support one another in this effort because we recognize it as a significant need across the territory.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. Yes, and I appreciate that that is a -- requires more than one department to come up with a solution to that problem, and presumably working with municipal and Indigenous governments as well.

I will move along to the addition of a new assistant deputy minister for the language and culture division. The department has been quite capably providing this area of public policy for many, many years without this position. Why do we need it now in a time of fiscal restraint? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, culture and languages have traditionally been -- well, languages, for sure, have traditionally been within the division that serves our JK to 12 education as well. And as you can imagine, they are both large subject matters and equally as important as the other. And so the intent there was to really pull culture and languages out of that division and provide it with its own necessary spotlight to make sure that it has all of the resources that we can provide it to be able to continue to grow that area because it is a critical part not only to education in the territory, but it's also a critical part to healing our territory as well.

Thank you. Before I go back to the Member from Range Lake, I would just like to remind Members that we're focusing only on the pages I mentioned, which in this case is on page 36 on corporate management. So I'm going to go back to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. And I don't want to speak to the languages and culture key activity. I wanted to speak to a senior management position within -- which fits, I believe, into corporate management. But I can move on if you wish, Mr. Chair. But I would say to that response, I think everyone understands -- at least in this Chamber understands the importance of language and culture. And I just -- I don't know if a new ADM is going to do the things the Minister's talking about. I think if we want to expend more financial resources on language and culture programs and do something big and bold that way, or perhaps create a new ministry or new department or new agency, those seem like better ways to emphasize the importance of language and culture. I don't know, can the Minister explain more how one position is going to fundamentally improve and main stage these programs? Is that -- sorry. Is that the problem? Do we not have enough senior corporate leadership in ECE to properly showcase languages and culture in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it is one of those ones where, you know, we look at the way that things operate and sometimes we have ideas how to make them better. Sometimes they work out. Sometimes they don't. This is one that the department is very confident will help us grow our resources for culture and language, specifically especially language revitalization. There's -- you know -- and like the Member said, none of us will disagree with that. I think one of the things that's really critical about this as well is we were able to internally fund this position. We did not have to go back and request additional funding for this position within the department in order to make it happen. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, how, I guess is my question. Like, I understand what the Minister's saying. This position is going to fundamentally improve service delivery. But how? Because, you know, it's one -- it's the addition of one person to provide leadership over the entire division -- or the entire key activity and all the staff that deliver those programs. So how is this one person going to make a difference? Thank you.

Thank you for your question. I'm going to go to the Minister.