Rylund Johnson

Yes, thank you, and I recognize that, and that is the complication of me asking these questions. You have committed to reviewing the funding formula, but, to me, the conversation about the funding formula really is not complete without recognition that there are millions of dollars in the system that is not ours. I think that figure is extremely important to all conversations going forward. Moving on, I wanted to Northern Distance Learning. I understand we are in phase 3 right now. Are we meeting our expansion goals, and can you give me an idea of what communities are next?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. There has been quite a lot of talk about the Arnica project over the last weeks in this House. I am happy to hear that there has been a meeting, and it seems there is still some hope for this project to go through, although I am still a little confused on some issues. The Minister had previously clarified that they had not seen the CMHC report and, in fact, relied on CMHC. My question to the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation is: has the Housing Corporation seen the CMHC application, and are they aware of the defects in that proposal?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I sometimes wish that I could have a federal Minister in front of me. The fact that there is $15 million and a lot of positions presently being funded by our federal government, do we have a sense of the stability of that funding? I know this is a question a federal Minister would have to answer, but is Jordan's Principle's funding going to disappear anytime? That is a huge amount flowing directly to our schools.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess my concern is that, in a number of regions, I believe Jordan's Principle funding is essentially propping up our education or early childhood systems, whether it's speech therapists or educational supports. Do we presently track how much Jordan's Principle money is entering our system?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate those comments, and the standing committee will be taking out the Official Languages Act, so I look forward to continued conversations. I, ultimately, believe that we don't necessarily need to be the flow through. If the feds are willing to fund the Indigenous governments directly, that's great.

I wanted to switch gears here and talk about the line items. Arts, organizations and operations funding and the NWT arts council. There's a number of fundings for arts here. Just, generally, do we have a sense for every dollar we invest in the arts, what the return...

No, thank you, sir.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm looking at the funding for Indigenous languages, $6,285,000. I believe this is largely flow through money to Indigenous governments to run their programming. I know there's been a number of federal increases to Indigenous languages programming. I'm just wondering if this is all GNWT money or this includes the federal funding that exists for Indigenous languages.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You will hear me over the next four years make multiple pitches for a guaranteed liveable income. I think one of the strongest arguments is the fact that $6.5 million of this $32 million, depending on which numbers we're talking about, exactly, is spent in administration costs. I'll leave that debate for another time. One of my other concerns with Income Assistance is it often requires people coming into the offices. There is a lot of paperwork involved. I believe this is in the mandate and there is some work being done on single-window service. Are there presently...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to hear those conversations we're having. I think I'm kind of on the side that we should be charging. Can I get a sense, do we know what the donation total is on an annual basis?