Frieda Martselos

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take away from the French or the English languages that we have to know in order to progress to postsecondary. I'm not doing that because those are also a key to our education system. But the main key for the Indigenous people of the North is that the Indigenous languages have to be revitalized and I want to know if we could have you know, to start thinking about making sure that there is going to be a school established in the North, the first of its kind, to revitalize the nine Indigenous languages. And so we make a statement that how important the loss of our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Monday, March the 6th, 2023, I will present Bill 73, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act, No. 4, to be ready for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, since the contract between Poundmaker's Lodge and Health ended last year, the NWT has lacked an option to send NWT residents to an Indigenousbased addictions treatment centre in the south.

Can the Minister tell us if her department has decided on a new service provider for this and will it be on track to be ready for April 1st? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in light of the new federal health funding that was announced last month for the NWT, can the Minister tell us is there any of that new funding will be used specifically to address the gaps in aftercare and detox services within the NWT and if so, what will that look like? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

After that, Mr. Speaker, for my statement today I want to speak once again about aftercare and detox services within the NWT.

This is an issue that I have spoken about several times throughout this term because it is an issue that touches nearly every family across the NWT. Mr. Speaker, two months ago, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction released a report entitled "Canadian Guidance on Alcohol and Health." In their report, which was developed by an independent expert working group of addiction researchers, they provide an updated set of guidelines for the recommended limit in the...

Madam Chair, I don't know if this is the place to bring it up, but there's also got to be an opportunity to wipe off some of these records. Some people are sitting with a minor offence that happened, like, 30 years ago and it's still on their record. There has to be a mechanism within justice to ensure that people have clean records after that many years. You know, people make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes in life. Not everybody has to go before the justice system. There has to be a mechanism within justice, especially for offenders that are just minor offence and happened like 30 years...

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I want to say that in the 14 years as chief of Salt River First Nation, these two items were used constantly, and the office in Fort Smith is running well. The people that work there care about everybody that goes through that door. I've had to access this office many times as chief because it's always our people that are put up before a system that is impossible to defeat. And there is always someone there to assist the client and assist Salt River to ensure that the best outcome always came. And I want to commend you for that. I don't like that the...

Mr. Speaker, it was stated in 2016, by the NTPC Minister of the day, that appointing deputy ministers to the board of directors was a cost saving measure that would save $1 million per year.

Can the Minister confirm if that turned out to be true and provide some dollar figures for how much money this decision has saved NTPC over the last seven years? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we all know in this House that the current makeup of NTPC's board of directors consists solely of deputy ministers from our government, and it has remained that way for seven years.

Does the Minister have any timeline for when a new group of board of directors will be appointed at NTPC? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think, Madam Chair, in the future that we have to look at this as a government because, you know, it's our own people that are being thrown out on the street just before Christmas. You know, and I had a case like that where there was a mother and a young girl, and they're couch surfing now. All the windows and everything in that house is all boarded up. No one's going near there. And there's no administrative fairness there. Administrative fairness means administrative fairness for everybody treated equally when it comes to rental or anything else in the territory. And until we come to that...