Steve Norn

Thank you for that. My next question is: has the Minister's department ever looked into an assessment process for applicants with criminal records?

Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I just want to acknowledge Pink Shirt Day. I'm glad to see we're all wearing pink today and talk about mental health a little bit. I want to say that kindness, love, and support must shine through to fight these issues. I just heard a couple of my colleagues talk about crime and whatnot, so I'm going to segue into that.

Mr. Speaker, I last spoke about the Affirmative Action Policy and the hiring practices in November. At the time, I spoke of policy shortfalls, specifically Ministerial appointments, GNWT hiring practices. Today, I'd like to talk about individuals with...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the response. It gives me a little bit more. It gives me a better idea where I need to go with this next question. We have 33 communities, and a lot of the communities are not like our larger centres where you could just consult with the mayors and whatnot. I know we have a lot of smaller communities, First Nations, for example, that the chiefs usually are the heads in that capacity. Has there been a lot of consultation stuff? I am thinking in terms of the business plans for MACA or the long-term business plans. Has there been a lot of consultation with...

Marsi cho, Madam Chair. I am just looking at the directorate on page 338 and some of the activity descriptions on this. We have the municipal funding gap we have to deal with, and it just feels like we are constantly finding ways to pivot and to find some solutions to close that gap and find ways to get funds out to our 33 communities. Aside from doing things on this side of the House, what has the department been doing in terms of finding ways to streamline and to get more funds out to the communities? Thank you.

Madam Chair, I move that we rise and report progress.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Let's hope we don't pay that money back and try to use whatever we can because we could use all the help we can get. I'm going down that list again. We see things like connectivity and broadband. That's an issue in a lot of our small communities. We talk about the cell phone service down the highways; I mean, yes. Anyways, that's merely a comment. I don't have any further questions on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We should make sure other Members are aware this covers a wide kind of spectrum of different things, like highways. I am just going to read down a short list here: public transit, regional airports, short sea shipping, culture, recreation, tourism. This covers quite a bit, so my next question is: how do we pick and choose how we allocate this, the main estimate of 18, almost $18.8 million? That is for the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am just looking at page 362, work performed on behalf of others. There is New Building Canada Plan, Small Community Fund. There is a big jump from the actuals to now. I just looked on the federal website exactly what this is. It looks like it was established in 2014. I just wanted to get a quick description of what this is and then how long because, like any federal gift, there is always usually a time limit on it. If I can get those two questions answered? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry, Madam Primier, I tried. Can you just give me, also, an example, of what the parameters are for a disabled person, what are the parameters for that to qualify for that program? Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Even for sewer services and stuff, that's all done through the community. Places like small communities, like Deninu Kue, we do not have a lot of mains, water mains, like waste water like we do in a lot of the larger centres. A lot of this stuff is all trucked in. Even in places like Ndilo, water is trucked in. I am not sure how that is going to go, but I think it's important to know that that is how our communities work. We need to understand that it's not like here in Yellowknife where you can just turn on a tap. You have to worry about your water; you have to...