Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I thank the Minister for that. And she kind of answered a little of my last question which would be has the department now reached out to, certainly in the areas where the Indigenous governments are very much involved in adult learning, have their own programs running through, and has the department now kind of looked to -- and I know the department works with Indigenous governments to expand that given that there's likely going to be a gap here that needs to be filled. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in multiple instances, the department of education hasn't even had to pick up the phone. As soon as the media articles hit the online waves there, the phone started ringing. My phone certainly did and as well as the department as well as Aurora College. So once we have clarity as to kind of what the landscape looks like, then would be the opportune time to start making phone calls and being able to actually have concrete conversations about how Aurora College intends to go forward so that we can have conversations based on known factors. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of ECE regarding income support.

Mr. Speaker, it's my understanding that in order -- I have a lot of experience helping constituents with this, but for them to get housing support they have to go to the Yellowknife Housing Authority to get on the housing list first. But unfortunately, most of these people don't actually need the full-fledged housing support through Yellowknife Housing Authority and have no intention because they're not at risk and they're certainly a low priority. But what it does is create an administrative burden for the local authority here, and I have no doubt it creates a local -- administrative burden for all housing authorities. So I'm asking the Minister of ECE would she commit to having a conversation with housing to ensure that we're being efficient with our time and resources rather than bottlenecking the housing system up by a process, an unnecessary process, embedded into income support that really is unnecessary. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member's in luck. The Minister of housing and I really enjoy working together. We have already had multiple conversations about this and have already provided direction to our departments and look forward to sitting down with the departments, continuing those conversations, and then being able to share the outcomes of those conversations with Members within probably the first or second quarter of this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Member from Yellowknife Centre -- no, Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker -- and thank you to my colleague. Mr. Speaker, I just want to ask the Minister of Finance, have we given up on Restoring Balance, the fiscal sustainability strategy of this government? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Finance.

(audio) Mr. Speaker.

Can the Minister explain her budget, then? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure that I'm -- I'll wait a minute.

Question out of order. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. Thank you -- oh, Mr. Speaker, thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, when can this House expect to see the cuts that are promised that will get us to $150 million in additional surplus that the policy puts up because we aren't seeing it with the estimates that have been coming out to date. I'm not talking specifically about what's in those estimates, but we have not seen those -- the range of cuts that have been promised, that people are concerned about, people want to know what's going on. So if we're still doing the strategy, when are we actually going to see these reductions? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, only one side of this House is talking about cuts. The government is not talking about widespread rampant cuts. What we have talked about is having a budget that is providing stability. Beyond -- I won't get into the details of it because that's one of the rules of the House the public may not be familiar with, that we don't talk about things that are still going through the processes of the committee that happen on the floor later today. But, Mr. Speaker, Restoring Balance is about just that. It's about restoring balance. It's not about cutting things when we don't need to or when we can't. It's about ensuring that we have financial future. We have achieved some of the goals of that already. In the last budget, we had some reductions that resulted in us having a significant surplus, and that got us through a very difficult year of low water among high fire -- and among other various challenges.

Now, again, we're coming forward and saying we are looking to spend all of what we need to on our capital budget so we don't need to take on debt for that. We're expecting to do the same this year as well. And that's all part of Restoring Balance.

Mr. Speaker, we ultimately would like to see our total debt come down. The net debt is a number that I certainly keep an eye on. But, Mr. Speaker, we need to do that in a methodical way. We are in a time of uncertainty, both in the territories but particularly in Canada and, really, around the world right now. And so with that, Mr. Speaker, we need to maintain balance. We want to restore balance. But we want to do it in a way that is reasonable and responsible. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Finance. Colleagues, time's up for oral questions. Oral questions. Written questions. Returns to written questions. Replies to the Commissioner's address. Petitions. Reports of Committees on the Review of Bills. Reports of Standing and Special Committees. Tabling of documents. Minister of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents: Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2024-2025; Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures) No. 2, 2024-2025. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Tabling of documents. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment -- sorry, Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: NWT State of the Conservation Network 2024. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Tabling of documents. Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Pursuant to section 106(4) of the Legislative Assembly Executive Council Act, as Deputy Speaker, I wish to table the Report of the Northwest Territories Integrity Commissioner Dismissing the Complaint by Deneze Nakehk'o (Daniel Richards) about the Disclosure of Identifying Information about Him by the Honourable Shane Thompson, MLA for Nahendeh. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Tabling of documents. Notices of motion. Motions. Notices of motion for the first reading of bills. First reading of bills. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 17, Municipal and Community Affairs Statutes Amendments Act, to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Pursuant to rule 8.2(3), Bill 17 is deemed to have first reading and is ready for second reading.

First reading of bills. Minister of Justice.