Rylund Johnson

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?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to having further conversations of this. I appreciate getting that number of $2 million. I see that Income Assistance, we all know, is increasingly going up. It went up $2 million from the last part. I think one of my beliefs here, perhaps we can have this conversation later, is that if you actually give a person a phone and the internet, they are more likely to get a job. They are more likely to be able to get in contact with the numerous services they are interacting with. We have seen through Integrated Case Management that often our most vulnerable...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Yellowknife Women's Society has reached out to the Housing Corporation throughout this process. They have reached out to almost everyone in this House. There has been nothing but attempts to reach out to the Housing Corporation and work with them. My concern is: on one hand, the Housing Corporation Minister is talking about not wanting to set people up for failure, wanting to make sure we have a strong investment, which I support. Yet, on the other hand, they are saying they are not even part of the application process. There is a deadline on here. I do not want...

Thank you. I am happy to hear that is on track, and I look forward to further expansion. My next question is: the Education Act will be coming forward in the life of this Assembly. I am glad we are going to have the conversation about the funding formula. Can I just confirm that the scope of the Education Act amendments will include allowing us to devolve education to Indigenous governments should it be desired?

It appears, despite multiple meetings and no shortage of questions here, there still appears to be some breakdown in communication. Will the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation ask CMHC and the women's society to get a hold of that application and the response and make sure that they are aware of all of the shortfalls that were in the application so that we are all on the same page?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I kind of want to save myself time asking every department that has Jordan's Principle funding applying to it and flowing through it. Once again, I know this is a federal government initiative, but perhaps, I am looking at the Minister of Finance, we could have a breakdown of the total Jordan's Principle funding that is existing within the GNWT right now?