Thank you, Mr. Chair. Regional projects, there's an increase from 2023-2024 actuals to the 2025-2026 Main Estimates. There's an increase there. Mackenzie Delta -- the Mackenzie Delta region has seen very little in terms of big capital projects. Is there anything to look forward to within this area here, for any of the three communities in my riding? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this increase is fairly modest, just over $300,000 here. And it's, again, related only to the collective agreement. However, Mr. Chair, with respect to our capital plan that we are expecting to be delivering over the next year, we do have the James Creek maintenance camp rehabilitation project that is coming out of Fort McPherson region, and that one is expected to move forward over the next coming year. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I have.

Thank you. Next on my list I have is the Member from Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Complementary of this budget, when it gets passed, and it's such a huge department with a lot of benefits, and as we are approaching or going to be approaching our summer student hiring season, can the Minister, not at this point in time but at some point in time and when time permits, provide a student summer employment program with all positions. I see in here there's, you know, not including the subcontractors or the contractors, you get 280 part-time and full-time positions. So it's a huge department to look at shadowing positions, SNAP positions, summer student positions. So if we can get a labour market plan to explain the summer employment benefits and apprenticeship benefits of this budget.

And I also must join my friend from Inuvik Boot Lake in wishing Steven Loutitt, the deputy minister, a happy retirement. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the summer student call I believe has gone out already and very happy to have the chance to encourage potential summer students, who may be eligible, to reach out to the department. It's a bit of a two-part process where obviously departments create these summer student positions and can then go to the Department of Finance and access the bank of names of persons who have contacted and put themselves forward. But to the extent that a student may have an area of interest, an area of expertise, an area of training, an apprentice, if they were talking to the folks in the Department of Infrastructure and can certainly say, look, I have these skills to bring you, it can help make it easier for us to say, look, that we know there's a project that we can open to a student. So it's a bit -- people can certainly apply. Just putting their names forward to finance, they will do their best to match and, indeed, we tend to have over 300 students in the last couple of years, if I recall correctly. But making those connections earlier and often is also helpful. So, you know, through MLAs is also a good opportunity to identify what projects are underway.

I -- you know, I took the Member's question with respect to being a bit beyond that and a labour market plan for the department. I would reference our Indigenous recruitment and retention Indigenous employment plans. That does show some of the different types of positions that we were hoping to bring in more Indigenous employees, and certainly some of the communities tend to have a higher proportion of Indigenous persons eligible and interested and available to join the public service. So it's a lot of opportunities here to see where we see those numbers availability, but then also as I said, to try connecting under the summer student program. So can certainly pull up directly if there's some more information I can provide about what kind of projects there or if there's some information we can get out to the community, to students, to summer students, to, you know, incoming apprentices, all of it, the more we are making those -- as I said, we'll see what we can get to the Member and really to the House to help encourage people to apply. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next on my list I have is the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few questions about the business plans, and I feel like this is as good an item as many to address them in. They probably touch on several.

But one of the goals in the business plan is to undertake regular evaluation of programs and services to ensure cost efficiency and to have a mechanism for regularly reviewing and updating infrastructure fees and roles, and it looks like the goal is to review two programs each year. Can the Minister explain what are the two programs that have been chosen for review this year and why those were determined to be the highest priority programs to review. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll perhaps turn to the deputy minister in just a moment, but let me at least give a bit of introduction that the two for this year, for this fiscal, are the deferred maintenance programs. So that is where we undertake ongoing repairs to GNWT assets over the life of that particular asset or building. It's more under our capital estimates program, but we want to ensure that, of course, we are maintaining those assets on an adequate life cycle. Right now they tend to be between somewhere 30 and 50-year life cycle, depending on the type of building or type of asset. So wanted to make sure we're doing that in the most efficiency way to, you know, expend the money that we have and, you know, maintain the assets that we have for as long as.

The second program, Mr. Chair, the driver and vehicle licensing services. So perhaps this is the space where someone might ask me again about weekends openings but this is, again, a review of what kind of services we offer to residents - ID cards, licenses, registrations, etcetera, the -- you know, the online services that we're moving to in-person services, what's working and what is not and what we could potentially do better. But, Mr. Chair, again, these are very operational so I just want to make sure I haven't missed anything with the deputy, please.

Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Okay, thank you to the Minister and her staff for that. And perhaps if Members have suggestions or ideas, we could communicate that to the Minister as to what programs can be evaluated next. Very exciting. We know what one Member would pick.

Just to follow up on my colleague's questions about the SNAP students and apprenticeship opportunities, I just -- I know that we have goals in the business plan of I guess the department itself or maybe the department-funded projects hiring ten apprentices and five SNAP students. Is there something different in terms of a requirement that's been applied now than has happened in the past? I know, you know, the department has had students occasionally in the past working. Have we done something different in order to ensure we're, like, able to find more apprentices or students or create more opportunities for them, or are we just sort of carrying on and still hoping that we'll be able to meet these targets? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the challenge with SNAP students specifically -- which is an area that is, you know, has an opportunity for growth -- is that these students are under casual contracts which means that they can't be -- that they have to be rehired after a period of time. But I think there has been some recent movement on that. I'll perhaps suggest I'll turn to the deputy to speak to that a bit further, please.

Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Okay, no, thanks for that update. That's great to know what some of the barriers are but also what work is being done to move through it as I think we can all agree that getting more people into the workforce is one of our highest priorities in this Assembly, and apprenticeships and things like the SNAP program can be great ways to do that. I'll leave it there for now.

I have a question about a few of the information items, but I'm hoping we'll have a chance to ask a few questions about that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Is there any further questions from Members? No further questions, please turn to page 285.

Infrastructure, regional, operations expenditure summary, 2025-2026 Main Estimates, $258,033,000. Does the committee agree?