No, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I've heard the Member in regards to staffing concerns. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further -- that's it? Okay, thank you. Any further questions? Seeing none. No further questions, please turn to page 40.

Education, Culture and Employment, early learning, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $35,894,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Moving on to education beginning on page 44 with information items on page 48. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my first question is for the first line item on page 45 here, junior kindergarten to grade 12 education system services. I note that it's declined in the past three years from $10 million all the way down to $4 million. So can the department explain to us what is the story with these cuts over subsequent years?

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, you see quite a large difference here, and what is it is there's a sunset of the education renewal and innovation ERI funding. There's also -- we used to do training where we would fly classroom assistants from small communities into Yellowknife to do training together. And what we learned from education bodies is that was very disruptive to the students that they were, in fact, supporting in the classroom so we switched to a virtual model. We also have -- sorry, just quickly looking here.

Oh, sorry, we also do have the mental health and wellness, the school-based mental health and wellness that used to be found in here, and has subsequently been moved to another line item.

Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My next question is related to the next page, on page 46 here. Aurora College transformation I notice we've also subsequently declined that item. And as we knew, MLAs kind of negotiated extra money into there, and now it is gone.

So the first question is not actually about the cut. Mr. Speaker -- or sorry, Mr. Chair, when is transformation of Aurora College to a polytechnic expected to be complete? Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, the Aurora College mandate -- well, I believe, has now gone out. I believe it's all in our in-boxes. Thank you very much. And so that mandate agreement commits Aurora College to 2027.

Thank you. Just a reminder, I'm just a chairman, so anyway. Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

No one thinks any less of you for it, Mr. Chair.

So knowing that we've got a number of years left, I feel like it's very obvious to point out that we're in 2025, and yet the funding has been completely cut. And so if the transformation is not scheduled to be complete for another two years, what is going to be funding the transformation and how are we going to be successful? How is the Minister ensuring that we are setting this institution up to succeed this time knowing that we already missed the rollout date of 2025 that was supposed to happen? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, I'm -- the funding was not cut. There's still very much a line item in there for post-secondary.

In regards to what was cut, there was a subset of the Aurora College transformation initiative, and that was funding from CIRNAC. There was also funding that then through budget negotiations that Members did put back in, so it nearly matched the sunset of funding from CIRNAC. So CIRNAC sunset was $581,000, and then Members negotiated $500,000 for it.

In that line item, there's also a carry forward of building Skills 4 Success of $100,000. There's also some amortization adjustments. And there is in addition to that some reductions in adult literacy as well.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I think, you know, I could go on and on about the Aurora College, but maybe we'll save that for some Members' statements in the next couple weeks.

Because I do -- I am genuinely curious, knowing that the mandate's out, to question the Minister about how they plan for that to be successful this time considering the previous mandate did not succeed.

The literacy funding item, I notice there's a fairly significant cut, and that seems to be over and above the closure of the community learning centres. So, overall, adult literacy is taking some big hits in this budget. Can the Minister explain to us the rationale for this? Is this a program that wasn't succeeding? Has the Minister's department simply given up on adult literacy? What are we trying to achieve with this cut here? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Mr. Chair, adult literacy is very much still within the mandate of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. This cut was due to fiscal sustainability, but this is an opportunity that we are taking to review adult literacy and basic education across the territory and how that funding was being used. We still have contribution agreements, like I've spoken about on the floor of the House, in the life of this sitting here to NWT Literacy, and then we also do have our literacy fund that are still available to communities and to community organizations, but we will be conducting a review of adult literacy and basic education in the life of this Assembly.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And the way it's described in this -- in the budget is funding to organizations to deliver literacy programs. So what organizations specifically are losing out with this cut?

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to pass to assistant deputy minister Barnett-Aikman.

Thank you. I'll go to the ADM.