Katrina Nokleby

Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker. It's good to be back in the House after the Spring Break, and I rise today to praise the efforts of young leaders in our territory. Over the last few months, youth from around the territory have been organizing and hosting summits in their communities. These gatherings brought future leaders together to discuss the challenges they all face, to learn from each other and experts, and to share their solutions and ideas for a brighter future. Gatherings have been held in Behchoko, Dettah, and Fort Providence, to name a few, and saw youth gather, not only from the NWT...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. "Educators need to be committed to maintaining safe spaces. If not, kids then don’t trust their schools to keep them safe." Northern Mosaic Network.

Youth who identify as 2SLGBTQIPA+ may experience discrimination, harassment, and violence from other students, educators, community members, and leaders. Many youth do not feel safe expressing their sexual orientation and gender identity in the NWT. Indigenous youth who identify as 2SLGBTQIPA+ may face additional layers of harm due to the intersection of racism and homophobia. One youth said that many Indigenous 2SLGBTQIPA+...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And, yeah, I appreciate that's in the little bit that I've seen of that, again not the committee I see on. But I appreciate that is what is being considered. And, again, I think it shows the understanding of the department that it's not going to be a one answer or a one size fits all across the territory.

And then I guess I'll just ask lastly, because I think that usually MLA Johnson asks and he's not going to today, is there a way or some others have asked, to actually funnel this money directly into our rehab addiction services, etcetera. And I'm pretty sure I already...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's great that WSCC is looking into it, however I'm wondering what the Minister and her department is doing. Does the department have an inspector out on this project regularly ensuring that safety protocols are being followed? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess I'm also sort of thinking trying to think a little bit more outside of the box of just the sale of cannabis itself. And the reason I bring this up is I have a constituent who is a cannabis influencer, and they are looking to see ways in which they could, potentially, you know, do growing workshops, things like that, and such as any other business in the Northwest Territories maybe be looking to have some startup cost funding, SEED funding, things like that. And I know that's not this hat today that you're wearing or the Minister's wearing. But, you know, I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While I'm happy to see all our illustrious people in the gallery, I want to recognize my page Chelsea Sieban who has been here for a couple weeks now, and I just say that after our time in COVID, when we didn't have the pages, it's really great to have them. And this group particularly seems to be really on top of the water glass filling. So thank you very much for that. And Happy Birthday to Lillian. Take care.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do appreciate that the Minister's a bit verbose but I did understand from the first sentence what the answer to my question was, so. I just want to one thing there that twigged me in that comment was the $700,000 to administer the program. So I have to say that feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth from the federal government. Not only are we imposing this all on you, we're now going to charge you another $700,000 to administer it for you. So is there any opportunity perhaps for us to go back to the feds and just say, please, at the very least remove the $700,000...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am now thinking that would be more in the capital area, so I do appreciate the Minister answering my question regardless.

So I guess I I'm going to touch the really big elephant in the room is the carbon tax offset. Again, I still I'm not on the committee. I do struggle at times to understand everything that is going on around the carbon tax. And given that there is $47.8 million here, and yet it's my understanding that we can't use these for rebates, where does this money end up going given the changes come April 1st? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So then I'm just guessing it wasn't in our predicted mains because we didn't know we were getting it, and I see the Minister nodding yes so thank you for that.

Given that there was a recent article about Canadian North and issues perhaps around financing, without getting too much into their financial details, does the Minister anticipate there's going to be another need for any aviation sector supports coming? Like, I recognize that the pandemic has played its course as far as being like an emergency, but, you know, our travel industry, our airlines are still quite...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure nobody likes tokenism but maybe lip service is another phrase that we can throw out when it comes to this conversation. I mean, I get that there appears to be an intent and a want and to hire and increase representation, but I just don't see it translating to people on the ground. And I recognize that there has been some key hires in senior management even that I think are really good and are, you know, leading the way and a good example. But when you look at just, you know, movement within departments, I can think of within the housing department, a longterm Indigenous...