Frieda Martselos

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...

So, Madam Chair, so how many staff are actually working within that integrated case management office?

Okay, that's it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple of questions just for clarify and for the record. The rehabilitation and re you know, having inmates going back into society, a lot of the programs that were in place before have disappeared. Some of the programs, like some of the inmates in the Fort Smith facilities were able to work in a workplace. That's not happening anymore. And I'm wondering why that was taken away. They used to go clean all the yards for all the seniors, you know, and all these other smaller things. And it happened for years. Then all of a sudden, it disappeared. And I'd...

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister provide the House with an update on the status of the Taltson Hydro Expansion and if she expects more funding confirmed in this year's federal budget? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I know this current NTPC Minister was not the Minister when the decision was made to appoint deputy ministers to the board of directors; however, can the Minister tell us if Cabinet or NTPC has anticipated that it would be seven years and counting for the NTPC board of directors to be solely deputy ministers? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The last question I have is the utilization of the new conference centre in Fort Smith. Both the new Salt River First Nation conference centre and the Fort Smith Metis Nation building conference centre; one is a bit older, one is a newer one, but I'd like to ensure that the department starts having some conferences, the smaller conferences, held in some of these buildings that are owned by Indigenous people, groups in Fort Smith. We're always saying that we're going to encourage Indigenous involvement in conferences and ownership, and I don't see very many conferences being held there that are...

So Fort Smith doesn't get funding for a visitor information centre? It's probably the warmest community and the garden capital of the Northwest Territories and has all these different events and a lot of tourists that go there, and we don't fund a visitor information centre for Fort Smith? I mean, going under the auspices of Parks Canada is not sufficient. I'd like to know what the criteria would be for Fort Smith to get some funding for a visitor information centre, whether it be run by either, one, the Salt River First Nation or the Fort Smith Metis Nation. So we have an Indigenous content...