Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Member for the question. I'd like to start off by acknowledging that it has certainly been a very difficult time for the Sahtu with the cancellation of the barge season and the impacts of climate change on Sahtu communities.

The barge cancellation program was a one-time program that we launched in recognition of the very difficult season that the Sahtu endured and certainly we, you know, hoped that water will come back. We know that it's predicted to be another dry year, and so we continue to encourage people to get insurance, especially...

Merci, Monsieur le President. [Translation] Translatin will be inserted for final Hansard -eds. [Translation ends]. Merci, Monsieur le President.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we had some funding that was allocated to this work and, unfortunately, that funding has been sunset and so we no longer have that funding within the advancing the knowledge economy section. So those contributions were for planning, research, and public engagement on advancing the knowledge economy, enhancing business support services in NWT regions, and the development of regional economic development plans. And as we've already talked about as well today, those regional economic development plans are now available online. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. We have an excellent relationship with Tourism NWT who does wonderful work. We also have -- sorry, and I should toot their horn a little bit. They've done a tremendous amount of work promoting even on things like Good Morning America. And as soon as they have done that work, we've seen access to our tourism operators shoot through the roof and some of those people, of course, are using our parks. We also have a tremendous amount of marketing on social media. We also have information in visitors centres in other jurisdictions. And a great way to also promote it...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Certainly as previously committed to in this House, that is an aspect of the agreement that I'm currently looking into with the department. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So that is certainly my hope for every single one of the subsidiaries, that they are supported to develop business plans and business practices that make them wholly independent from Prosper NWT. I have asked the Prosper NWT, along with their board, and their board has made the same request to Prosper, to look at plans to move out of having to support these subsidiaries. So there's just under nine full-time staff that work at them across the -- well, in the communities where they are present, and the cost to Prosper is over a $1 million. And so ensuring that...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, certainly we are working on everything to do with critical minerals on basically a daily basis within the department, especially this time of year. I've just come off of a bit of a whirlwind of critical mineral events, both in Vancouver and Toronto. We continue to advance critical mineral work on all fronts, including in our geoscience database building, in our investment attraction, in making sure that we're informing the world about all the projects that are on the go here in the Northwest Territories. And we also have our Northwest Territories...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So what was done was we worked with communities to hire security for the parks in order to further support park users that were there because of the evacuation. So we will continue working with MACA and with Indigenous governments should the need arise. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're certainly at an interesting juncture in the life-span and chapters of Aurora College. So Aurora College has a mandated responsibility for accessing -- or for community members to be able to access educational opportunities. So that still exists within their mandate agreement which is why they continue to find different ways to deliver that programming but because they have autonomy over operations and how they choose to deliver that, that is entirely up to them as a decision. And because of the noninterference clause, I don't have the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the programs and services afforded by Prosper NWT are everything from debt financing, which is primarily in the form of loans, venture investments, digital support programs, and also business services. So for example in the form of accounting or human resources support as well. Thank you.