Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, March is National Engineering Month in Canada, and it is our largest celebration of engineering excellence. An annual national campaign, National Engineering Month celebrates engineers, our work, and the important role we play in society.

Spearheaded by Engineers Canada, National Engineering Month this year is guided by the theme "There's a place for you in engineering" which celebrates the diversity of thought, opportunities, and people that make up the engineering profession. In some provinces, you will find geoscientists joining in as part of National...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I also hope that we will be seeing bumps in these line items.

I think another piece that I became live to as an engineer and to my statement, when I was consulting, is really the lack of the intermediate age group in many professions. So in Canada with the Baby Boomers starting to retire, we have, you know, younger people coming in, but we're really missing that intermediate senior level of professional which we can see by all of the, you know, vacancies that we're looking for in the various industries.

So I guess with that in mind, how does the department help with...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And, you know, I understand that the federal government has its own sort of relationships with different organizations but as the Minister's aware, and I've recently become aware, you know, with the way that the federal government awards its funding at times there's often a lag in that funding, or if they decide to delay the announcement, and with so many of our NGOs operating on very shoestring budgets and, you know, sort of I want to where residents are living paycheque to paycheque but NGOs are living project funding to project funding, and it's not sustainable; we...

Well, Mr. Speaker, I'd be happy to tell the Minister about what the popsicle bridge building contest is. So for years now the engineers have been sending out to all out of the communities, all the school groups, if they would like to participate a set and series of popsicle sticks and through that they have to construct a bridge. They are provided with the means to transport the bridges back to Yellowknife if they themselves cannot come to the event. I think Canadian North is usually a sponsor of that shipping. And then they bring them here and we use a machine and we crush them, and we see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would appreciate that, but I'm disappointed the Minister can't tell the public right now what they are.

Another issue within engineering is that there are only about 13 percent of engineers in Canada who are women, and this is a very stagnant number. When we look at the Department of Infrastructure, it does counter a lot of the other GNWT departments in that it is not a department that has a lot women and particularly not a lot of women that are in technical roles.

Can the Minister speak to how the department is working to increase the diversity of the workforce...

Wrong end of the room. I would like to welcome Natalie Pressman with the CBC that has joined us. It's always nice to have media here. And I can imagine it gets to be quite a long day at times listening to us here. So I appreciate she comes. Thank you.

Thank you. And I play soccer so if I ever get back to that with one of the people that work there, I will let them know that they should maybe schedule a meeting with the Minister and have a chat.

You know, I look at some of these line items and I recognize that there's been some influx of money, as mentioned to my colleague, for the Aurora College; however, given that we had the recent conversation with Giant Mine and the different proponents, I won't rehash all of that but, you know, I think this is an area where it's a good place again to get money, training, skills, and capacity into the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I actually had an opportunity when I was in grade 11 or 12 to go to UBC Connect, which was very much the same thing, and even coming from Abbotsford, BC, which is not that small, it was still very overwhelming to come into Vancouver. So definitely I think that's wonderful, and I'm glad to hear it's not just about those specific programs or instances that I see on more advertised.

So my next question comes back around to the funding to the schools. So it's my understanding that due to the high cost or increases to insurance lately that the schools that the GNWT has...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So first I just wanted to start and I do apologize, if I'm repeating others. But the healthy food for learning program, great program. I can't say enough about having and helping kids have access to healthy food.

Given that we are seeing a high cost of inflation, which is affecting food prices, grocery prices, etcetera, and I've had actually people reach out about how important and more we need help here, I'm just wondering we're staying pretty stagnant; has there been any sort of assessment of, like, the needs of this program; is there more money that's going to be...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I won't get into the debate about what I feel about the comment of, like of the forprofit being the designation between helping and not helping. I would actually want to reterm that as the, you know, for barelyprofit or barelyforprofit would be more accurate, I think.

My question, though, is when this money was announced, you know, I had hoped that we would be able to look into putting money into small communities to pay relatives, etcetera, that take care of grandchildren or nieces and nephews and such. And then upon my conversations and my many conversations with day...