Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Monfwi.

Yeah, thank you. That's about it. So I'll just stop there. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Any more questions for information items on page 55 to 57? Seeing none. I'm going to continue on. No further questions, please turn to page 54.

Education, Culture and Employment, labour development and standards, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $16,857,000. Does the committee agree?

Now I would like to go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move that this committee defer consideration of the activity labour development standards in the main estimates for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Question has been called. All those in favour, show of hands. Thank you. All those opposed? The motion is carried.

Consideration of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditure, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, labour development and standards, is deferred.

---Carried

We will now move to the next key activity. Moving on to the language and culture on page 58 with information items on page 60 to 63. Is there any questions? Okay, I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake -- oh sorry, I'll go to the Minister.

Mr. Chair, with your permission, I'd like the opportunity to trade out my witnesses, please.

Absolutely.

Okay, thank you. What I'll do, is because the translators need a break, we'll take a ten-minute break, and I'll go back to the Member from Range Lake. Ten minutes, starting now.

---SHORT RECESS

Thank you. I think we're going to continue on. But before we do, I just want to say thank you to the interpreters. Have a good rest. We'll see you tomorrow. For the rest of yous, continue on.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake for pages 60 to 63, information item.

Arts funding to ITI, I believe is the plan to streamline things, immigration, all immigration's going to be parked here in ECE, and all arts funding, but this -- these estimates show plenty of arts funding continuing on here. So when is that happening and how is it happening? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it is absolutely true that Members would have heard, as well as the public, that there is an intent to streamline arts spending within ITI and immigration within ECE. It was important to me that that announcement be made as soon as possible so that the work could then follow in a much more transparent and public way around making sure that we were transitioning stuff so that the staff that are involved in those programs so intimately could be involved in that planning process, and so you will definitely still see budgets reflected in their traditional home departments because that work is still required to be done and then once we kind of are able to have a plan forward and official dates and what that will look like, then we will go forward with tidying everything up. Thank you.

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

So to be clear, there are -- is there an implementation plan, or is this just new policy direction? Thank you.

I'll go back to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as far as the implementation plan of what this will look like and how it will be done is something that is currently in the works within each of the departments, and so it's not something that I was able to, you know, quickly go and do in a rush over the last six months in order to make sure that it was separated out before we got to this part in our term together but I wanted to ensure that this is something that can be done in this fiscal year. So I guess my best response to the Member is stay tuned, and I will make sure that I am doing my best to make sure that Members are well informed of what is happening and when.

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

Thank you. And I don't want to run into hot water with you, Mr. Chair, around what's been discussed with our committee review of this, but suffice it to say, like, this -- the announcement that was made publicly, I think it was the first time everyone became aware of it. And it is a little surprising because typically we don't see that. Typically we see things pretty static and changes come slow and usually there's either a supplementary estimate that comes up or some other instrument to move things along. So I will say this:

I like this. I think it's good initiative on the Minister's part. I think this is a sensible thing. I'd like to -- but, I mean, I would like to see this reflected in more areas of the budget -- or more areas -- sorry, of the GNWT where Ministers are making clear decisions around how things ought to work, and once we make that decision we work out from there. My only lament is that I would like -- it would be nice to see that in this budget, though, because when you have an announcement on, you know, budget day that all this cool stuff's happening and then you look at the document and it's not in there, then it leads us to ask these kind of questions and try to figure -- and try to piece together the plan. So at this point, it's a great idea and I look forward to seeing the plan. And, again, I hope we see more initiatives like this, but it would have been nice to see it reflected in this budget.

It also would be nice to see some increases to arts funding as well. We're chronically underfunded in arts, I'd say, compared to other -- some other jurisdictions, notably Yukon, which is a smaller budget than ours, smaller population, smaller territory size, all those things, but is often our closest comparison as a northern neighbour. And they have done remarkable things with their arts sector that by investing a significant amount of resource in it, and you see the dividends pay off. And it's complemented their tourism product. It's complemented their -- the -- you know, the cultural richness of Whitehorse and Dawson and the Indigenous communities as well. Like, there's lots -- there's lots you can look to. And I'm not going to -- I'm not going to look too favourably on them because I think far too often, we gush over the Yukon, and their problems are different than our problems, and we have lots going on here too. But one thing we could be doing more is spending -- is investing more in the arts, and I hope this shift sees that. I think ITI is perhaps more ambitious about how it chases people to invest, but I don't know because I haven't dealt with the department directly.

So maybe the Minister can speak to that because we've got a lot of people with expertise in this area. So, you know, how are we going to see these limited resources used more effectively by this change in policy direction? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll move to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the Member's comments for sure. I can reflect on some recent decisions that were made that came out that were not -- well, that were fully baked, we will call them. And so it's -- you know, it's definitely one where finding that sweet spot of how people want to see ideas come out of the oven is definitely one that depends who you're chatting with. And so I appreciate the Member's support on this and look forward to being able to update him on what those timelines look like once we've had the opportunity to make sure that we're going about this in the right way to ensure that there is as little disruption to residents of the territory as possible. That's very important for both streams that we are combining together. I know that there's also been a lot of talk about this on the floor of the House, not only in this Assembly but also in previous Assemblies as well. And I guess this is one of the nice things, is this is one that I asked for last term and now we get -- now I get to do it. So here we are.

In regards to arts funding, Mr. Chair, we are currently second in Canada. And so while it's not first place, you know, we're a strong second as far as per capita spending in that regard. And so I, too, share the Member's excitement about where arts will go within ITI. I think one of the things that's really neat is there's kind of now going to be this suite of funding that kind of leads people through a journey from potentially being an art for art site type subscriber to developing it into a starting business and then potentially going from there. There is also that very natural and beautiful connection with art tourism as well, which the Member brought up, and which I can also say that in the opportunity I've had to travel to different communities in the South Slave, especially recently, art tourism came up multiple times, and the excitement around the potential of art tourism and the economic driver that that is was quite exciting and quite nice. And so the ability not only to connect people with resources to build business but also to connect people with other sources of funding, not only within the GNWT but also through those federal and third party partnerships that I know, that ITI definitely is in tune to and very excited to use in order to support the growth of arts in the territory. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And --