Caitlin Cleveland

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 19.4(4) and ask that Committee Report 2619(2): Standing Committee on Social Development Report on the Child and Family Services Act Lifting NWT Children, Youth and Families: An All of Territory Approach to Keeping Families Together, be referred directly to Committee of the Whole for consideration later today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, is the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment willing to share this information with the House or with the Standing Committee on Social Development? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your Standing Committee on Social Development is pleased to provide its report on the Child and Family Services Act Lifting NWT Children, Youth and Families: An All of Territory Approach to Keeping Families Together.

All children are sacred. NWT children and youth are talented, unique and powerful. But not all children have access to what they need. Over 98 percent of children and youth in care in the NWT are Indigenous, even though just 57 percent of the population of children and youth are Indigenous. The extent of destruction and trauma on Indigenous...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And I appreciate that, you know, variety is the spice of life and especially when it comes to being able to put together kind of a robust fleet I guess of programs that support food security. And like I said, agriculture programs are important as well longterm, and I fully, fully support those, and I think there's a lot of really, really strong business ideas that have come out of some that funding and that are being developed right now across the North. But when we speak about food security, one we're not necessarily looking at all of those agriculture...

Yeah, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I think this is a really important subject and really important question because although I know that there is a huge push to increase public housing, and I understand the huge importance of that, there is also a need for us to be or for the GNWT to be able to fill vacant positions in communities that they are creating both because the communities need it, this and there's a huge push to put a lot of these support services back into communities to serve residents of the Northwest Territories. And so it's it's one of those, you know, catch 22s, where you...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, just a oh sorry, I've got sorry, I've got really bad feedback right now. So just in regards to this this priority here, I see a lot of our priorities of course are very connected, and so in conjunction with increasing employment in small communities from the inside out, there's also a potential for increasing employment in small communities from the outside in. And when I think about our priority of increasing regional decisionmaking authority and also the drive to ensure that some positions within the GNWT are also returned to communities, that kind of brings the...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, currently I'm in the line item of work with partners including the federal/Indigenous governments to increase funding for housing programs. It is marked as fulfilled.

Given that this is something that the Housing portfolio is constantly working on and that we don't want to lose sight of, I'm wondering if the Premier will commit to changing the status of that to ongoing so that we are consistently looking for additional funding opportunities. Thank you.

No further comments, Mr. Chair.

In favour.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee would like to report on its consideration of Bill 41: Justice Administration Statutes Amendment Act.

Bill 41 received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on December 7th, 2021, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Development. On March 24th, 2022, the standing committee held a public hearing with the Minister of Justice and completed its clausebyclause review of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, the committee reports that Bill 41: Justice Administration Statutes Amendment Act is ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole...