Thank you. Please turn to page 88 of the bill.

Clauses 46 to 50, does committee agree?

Thank you. Please turn to page 91 of the bill.

Clause 51, does committee agree?

Thank you. Returning to the bill's number and title. Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act No. 2, does the committee agree?

Thank you. To the bill as a whole, does committee agree?

Thank you. Does committee agree that Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act No. 2, is now ready for third reading; does committee agree?

Thank you. Committee, does the committee agree that this concludes our consideration of Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act No. 2; does committee agree?

Thank you, Minister, and thank you to the witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses from the chambers.

Committee, we have agreed to consider Tabled Document 522-20(1), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2026-2027. We're going to pick up where we left off yesterday evening. Does the Minister of Finance wish to bring witnesses into the House this evening?

Yes.

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chamber. Would the Minister please introduce her witnesses.

Certainly, Mr. Chair. On my left, Mr. Chair, is Bill McKay, the deputy minister of finance. And on my right Mandi Bolstad, the deputy secretary to the financial management board.

Okay, thank you. Does the committee agree to proceed to the details contained in the tabled documents, committee?

Thank you. Committee, we will resume consideration of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment on page 3 to 4, starting with education. I would like to go back to the Member from Monfwi where we left off yesterday.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yesterday, when we were talking about education regarding the programs and services delivery, so in -- you know, I just wanted to ask the Minister, I know when the learning centre was closed in 19 communities, it was done without consultation. And I know this government is really advocating -- believe in consultation and working with the Indigenous group, Indigenous government, to build good working relationship. And so with that in mind, I just wanted to ask the Minister if they are working with the Indigenous group in Fort Smith regarding the operation of some programs that's being delivered in Fort Smith -- or, you know, when they're cancelling a program, moving to a different location or to different colleges, are they consulting and working with the Indigenous government in Fort Smith? Because there -- it's not just one. There's the First Nation and there's the Metis group too as well, so. Because I know many of them, they do rely on these program and services delivery through the Aurora College. So I just wanted to ask that, if they're working with -- so what kind of relationship do they have with the Indigenous group in Fort Smith? Thank you.

Thank you. I am going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Mr. Chair, very important question. Mr. Chair, we're fortunate in just in this government that the Thebacha leadership council has been formed, which is an opportunity where all of the different leadership governments and leaders within the community are able to come together, and that certainly helps provide a point of immediate reference for our government. I believe, in fact, that a Minister of this government was quite instrumental in seeing that entity come to fruition. So certainly, speaking for myself at least, I would say that there's a lot of conversations that happen, there's a lot of engagements. I've been to Fort Smith multiple times, and I believe other Ministers of the government have as well. I understand that the college board's president has had conversations with Members of the Thebacha leadership council but I can't speak for the board -- or for the Aurora College board. So, Mr. Chair, what I certainly could do is this is -- again, this is for the supplementary appropriation. We are looking for an opportunity to provide some funding so that the college can begin the development of curriculum. That curriculum work does include, you know, positions that are expected to be based both in Yellowknife and in Fort Smith, and then to be able to be having cohorts enter these programs in the fall of 2027. And certainly happy to convey back via the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment the desire to ensure that we do continue to maintain the relationships that the government has with the Thebacha leadership council and all Indigenous leaders and regional leaders within Fort Smith as well. So, again, happy to take that back. As I say, this is a supplementary appropriation to make sure that we take this first step, and then further development and programming begins from here. Thank you.

Thank you. I will go to the Member from Monfwi.

Thank you. So the reason why I ask this is because the bachelor of teacher education and bachelor of social work program, it's going to be delivered out of Yellowknife and not in the community -- I mean, it's not going to be offered in Fort Smith. And social work program was being delivered through Fort Smith before and also with the Thebacha campus. You know, when we went to school there in the 90s, a lot of those programs were being delivered out of a portable unit. There was a social work program, the renewable resources program, school community counsellor program, interpreter/translator program, and teacher education program was at the other end of the community where they were near the school. Now they have a really beautiful facility. You know, a lot of work went into the extension of the building. And they even have a daycare. This was not available when we were there, the daycare services near the college. I mean, everything is right there. They have all the -- you know, they have the facility, they have the accommodations, they have daycare services for families with children. Now that if we have these programs being pulled out from the community of Fort Smith, it's not just going to have an impact there, it's also going to have an impact on the school operations because they do rely -- I know that Fort Smith -- because Fort Smith was a centre, that's where a lot of our community members went to take various programs and a lot of them came with their families because of the funding allocation from GNWT for school. So they receive a lot of money from that, but now they're not going to receive lots and now it's going to be Yellowknife that's going to be receiving, especially for families with children. So the funding allocation, they're going to lose that and the small communities are going to lose that too. So I just -- even in Behchoko alone, I know we had a community-based program where two years of teacher education program was offered. That was really good. It was a success story, even for the Indigenous language program too, and -- but after two years, they had an option of transferring to either go to Saskatoon or University of Saskatchewan because it's affiliated with Aurora College and/or to Fort Smith. But there was not too many disruptions when they took the program in their community. So I am just -- I want to ask the Minister if they're -- instead of having this program only delivered in Yellowknife, is there a plan to extend these two programs? Because we need a lot of social work -- social workers in small communities, and we need a lot of teachers, you know. We didn't have -- don't have any or didn't have any recent grads from Aurora College since it closed in 2017 or the two programs was cancelled in 2017. So I just want to ask the Minister if there's any plan to have these programs extended to small communities where family are -- do want to leave due to no housing -- due to housing issues, and especially with daycares too. If there's no daycare provided here in Yellowknife, there's daycare services, but a lot of our people will not meet the needs. They cannot afford it. Some of them are saying that, so -- and there's a long waitlist. But in Fort Smith, I am not too sure about the waitlist but at least they have the facility there for families with children. Thank you.