Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Chair rise and report progress. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry, I'm getting a little bit fatigued. I have nothing further, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I was really happy to see this one, and word it the way we did; dignity is so important. Just before the session we were downtown here in Yellowknife and I saw an elderly lady, it was just busy, moving really slow, and I stopped my vehicle. I didn't care if people were ticked off behind me. I stopped my vehicle, I got out, and I helped this lady cross the street, and she had a handkerchief on, slow, and had a cane. I took my time and I talked with her, I joked with her. She thanked me; she spoke really good English. She still had a little accent, but she said, "Mahsi cho," and I said, "It's all good. You're going to be good for another 30 or 40 years." Of course, she laughed really loud and got a good laugh out of it. That's how you have to treat your elders. You have to joke with them and talk with them, and make them feel important. To me, that's what's important, to treat them with dignity. That's the way I operate, and any time I see, when our elders are having any sorts of barriers, it just angers me; it motivates me, I guess. I want to try to do as much as I can.

One of the things, too, with the policies I see here, there are changing policies with the NWT Housing Corporation. For example, there are still a lot of elders having lots of troubles. There are still a lot of mobility issues. I brought some up in the House, and I know that the Minister from the Housing Corporation wanted me to ask some questions. I still haven't asked. I just want to let that sit for a little bit, because it's important. I want to give a lot of departments, let the Ministers think. We have to treat our elders like royalty, like gold; that's what they deserve. They brought many of us up, and that's how we should treat them.

Going back to what I was saying about many policies, I'd like to see a little bit more of that. I know that we made a change for NWT Housing Corporation to help with small businesses, but I want to see a little bit more for getting more policies and getting more funding to help out with mobility, for example. I don't know what that's going to look like. I know that we're under some fiscal constraints, but in these areas, I think it's really important, especially mobility. It helps; if you help elders around their homes be mobile around the home, it will keep them in their homes longer, so we don't have them ship them off to places like Inuvik. It's not right.

So I just want to see if the Premier or the Minister would be committed. I want to hear what kind of commitments they're going to make in terms of changing policies. I want to hear specifically what kinds of policies they're going to change. Mahsi cho, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Premier, for the response. Yes, I guess I was not too clear on that. That was not really mentioned in here, but I think it's such a key thing and needs to be mentioned at some point in here. If we get these attendance rates up, even like by whatever benchmark, I guarantee we will see some better KPIs or key performance indicators come up, like graduation rates. I know that will happen. I am not sure how we are going to get there, but that is just a comment.

My next question is on distance learning and making sure there are opportunities available in all NWT communities. I know in mine riding that it's used a lot in Deninu K'ue but not so much in Lutselk'e. It's tough because the Internet is not that great there. When we have our Caucus retreat, we are going to get a good taste of that, so download your movies now. I think, to do distance learning, you need really good infrastructure like internet and a really fast internet connection to help to teach distance classes, so I am just wondering for those communities, because I know that not every community is going to have really quick Internet, so I'm just wondering if there are any solutions that the Premier might have for that. Mahsi cho, much.

Thank you, Madam Chair. When we did our briefings and just after we got sworn in, the stats kept playing in my head over and over, and it's almost like a nightmare now, but it's the rates for our high school graduation for Indigenous populations in small communities. The 2018 graduation rates are 33 percent in the small communities, and, well, that made me sad. You look right below that stat I have in front of me right now is there was really steady attendance rates right from kindergarten to grade nine. All of a sudden, for the key grades where your grades are on a transcript, it just significantly drops. I have in front of me from 82 percent attendance rates, all of a sudden, it goes down to like 70 percent. That is pretty significant.

I am just wondering, that is a big disconnect, you know. Especially, I know in my riding, attendance is not great, and we are only have one or two people, sometimes no kids, graduating in a given school year, and a big part of that in my interviews of the teachers and them telling me is kids are not coming to school. We are trying to, some schools are trying to, be creative and innovative to try to get the kids to school. Like, you know, if you hit a certain attendance benchmark, you get a little prize or whatever. We have got to be innovative. I am just wondering if there are any sort of suggestions you have, Madam Premier, in trying to help out, get kids into the school, get the attendance rates up or maybe even the Minister could have some sort of programs or anything, sort of like incentives that they are working on right now. Mahsi cho, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am just going to carry on from what the Member for Frame Lake just mentioned. A lot of the results for this item won't be seen for years. I will say this made me feel really good. Again, you look at some of the most developed countries on the planet, some of the G8 nations. Scandinavians are light years ahead of the rest of the world. What they do is they throw their resources behind their kids. You can see it now. They had done it a couple generations ago, and you can really see it now. They are way ahead of the rest of the world in terms of having their kids educated. It shows in their economy. This is it. This is one of the most proactive things we can do on our list.

What I did notice in here that caught my eye was there wasn't too much mention about small communities. You always have to remember, whenever we have set goals, to always remember that we have to think about our most vulnerable sectors, regions, to get some of these programs into the small communities. It is so important. I think I just want to see if I can get some sort of commitment from the Premier to get to have this as a KPI, key performance indicator, by region just to closely monitor this. Once we have this in place, we need to really closely monitor it over time so that we can closely track. If there is a region left behind, we can get behind it and make changes as they go along rather than finding out when it is too late, realizing there might be a region or small community left behind. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, I was not too sure, but I caught that last little bit, and that's good. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I am just looking at the "What We Will Do." It says here, "Strengthen GNWT procurement policy and practices," and it mentions our BIP policy, P3, and NMPP. I am just wondering what our government is going to do or what the Premier is going to do for small businesses in consultation to move this forward. Mahsi cho, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 17-19(2), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 4, 2019-2020, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 17-19(2) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill. Mahsi cho, Madam Chair.