Katrina Nokleby

Thank you for that, reiterating the Premier's point again. Thank you. I look forward to getting that information. Can you speak to how much money was spent relocating people around within the territory to take these positions, i.e., people being moved to the Beaufort-Delta region rather than hiring locally there? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am looking at page 178 at the active positions. Could the Minister or the department tell us how many of these positions were hired from the North versus how many were people brought from the South? Thank you.

I thank the Minister for the pseudo-commitment to that. I will probably follow up myself and just explain a little better what gap I am talking about because I do have some specific items to discuss. My next question is: what is the future of claim relief? What is the department going to do to ensure that, once restrictions are lifted, we are supporting our mineral exploration sector to get back to work?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are also for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. Can the Minister maybe characterize what the decline in mining operations has been in the Northwest Territories due to COVID and maybe provide a bit of an estimate of the total number of companies that are expected to work on their mineral claims this upcoming fiscal year? Thank you.

I'm good. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am having a computer issue. Could you move on? Thank you.

Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. I am just looking at the active positions. Again, seeing that there have been 10 positions added to the headquarters, again, not to the regional offices, could the Minister maybe speak to why a decision was made to increase headquarters staffing versus putting those positions elsewhere? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to look at page 181. I am looking at the contributions generally to NGOs and other organizations to support Northwest Territories residents. I notice that we are really stagnant to our standard budget and not a lot of line item increases, other than the Health and Social Services Authorities funding. I am disappointed to see that. I think that we have had a lot of conversation around mental health and addictions supports and such. I know that NGOs are really good at making their money stretch and are being very effective in our communities, recognizing that a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes. I do appreciate that there is a huge chunk of employment in this department that is not in Yellowknife. However, as we have adapted to COVID, we've seen we've been able to move to a more virtual and online world, so 82 positions that all sit in headquarters. Perhaps at some point, there could be a look to see if any of those could be moved out to communities, to give opportunities to people in other locations to rise up through this program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Rather than the monetary amount, I would like to get a feel for how many people did move around. I know that there have been people who were hired from out of the region into that region. I just want to know if there is a way to characterize that happening, but it doesn't sound like it. Maybe I will follow up, then, with the Minister at a later date. Thank you. I'm good.