Caroline Cochrane

Mr. Chair, with me I have Mr. Martin Goldney, the deputy minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs and the secretary to Cabinet. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do believe that there's a couple of things I heard in there and so I'm just going to take it, and then I'm going to transfer it to a different Minister actually.

Housing is one thing, and yeah, so I mean, years ago when we thought it would be cheaper to bring in modular homes is that modular homes don't transport well to the far communities in the North. So that you know, it's not going to be a reality for that. However, you always have to do the balance. Is it you know, is it you can get five modular homes for $500,000 versus one stickbuilt for $500,000, and you got...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to turn that to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Minister Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So to deal with the Nutrition North, I don't believe it has to be at the federal table with the with all of Cabinet. I think it's something that ENI can EIA can take on. It's something, like I said, I took on when I went to the communities and asked people about it. That's how we got the other communities on. I've already made the commitment I will go further with that work and ask them, you know, that of issues that they have with the program and carry that back to the federal government. So I'll follow through with my commitment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd love to be able to say yes, that these final agreements will be signed tomorrow, today, at the end of the day. The reality is that we're one member at the negotiation table. There's three members. And so we're trying to do our best to make sure that these agreements are done in a fair equitable manner that meets the needs of the the NWT Metis Nation people and also the needs of the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'll take that as a comment. Thank you for the agreement. I think it's shared by many Members. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, well I do know that Municipal and Community Affairs does keep track of the capital amounts that they get from the federal government. The difficulty with having a formula, Mr. Chair, is that the years back, and I can't remember what year it was, but the GNWT did a good decision in my opinion, was they signed what was called the new deal, which meant that city municipalities were allowed to define their own, what they wanted to do instead of the GNWT telling them what to do. But when the the bad point there's always good and bad with everything and what happened that with that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely, like you said, the mandate says that it is about recommendations for improvements in Nutrition North. When we went and we talked, it was communities asking to get on to it. I've already made the commitment that I'll go further with that, Mr. Chair. So I'm not sure what more the Member wants of me. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, this government remains committed to making negotiations and land claim and selfgovernment agreements a priority. It's one of our 22 priorities of this Assembly. It was a priority from the last Assembly, many before. It remains a priority, and it will remain a priority until it is until they are completed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've heard that quite a bit. Decentralization is not one of our priorities actually. It's not in here. It's increase regional decisionmaking was in here. In saying that, though, I mean, there is a commitment. There is a like I said earlier, the Minister of Finance has made a commitment that we all want to see jobs in the communities. We recognize that, you know, like it was mentioned earlier, the stronger our smaller communities are the stronger Yellowknife is. It was made by a Regular Member, and I agree with that statement actually. And so like I said earlier, one of...