Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to present to the House Bill 80, Dental Hygienists Profession Statute Act, to be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories complete Truth and Reconciliation Call to Action No. 21 and secure substantive federal funding for Northwest Territories Indigenous healing centre to support Indigenous individuals who have been harmed and/or traumatized by the Indian Residential School system, Sixties Scoop, and other acts of colonization. Thank you, Madam Chair

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this is a very important one. We heard from multiple youth who were involved in or are involved in the child and family services system in care, or children who are not currently in care but that have been involved with the child and family services system and are choosing to use shelters to access safe housing. There is currently no available onebedrooms or bachelortype living or living options available in most of our communities in the Northwest Territories. And so when youth, or youth who age out of care, are looking for a place to live, a safe...

Madam Chair, I move that the chair rise and report progress.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And just so that I'm clear too, and I think that sometimes different words mean different things to different people, and one of my concerns there is that the word "recognition" could be, you know, we recognize and appreciate that you speak your language, and one of the things that I want to make sure is that the language spoken is valued by the GNWT in the form of remuneration. So, Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to state that there.

But will the Minister also consider committee's recommendation to create a new category of bonuses for Indigenous employees who are...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Justice increase funding to the men's healing fund to support regional healing programs for the holistic health and wellbeing of men. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services increase the Community Suicide Prevention Fund to $1 million annually.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry, I jumped the gun there. We heard about this a lot in our travels to communities. And what spurred this motion is there are families who have lived in public housing units for decades, and unfortunately when an elder who is the leaseholder passes away, their children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews who live in that unit with them, and have spent their entire lives calling that unit home, find themselves homeless and at the bottom of a housing waitlist because they are not the leaseholder, and they have no claim to that home. And so this motion is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Finance. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Standing Committee on Government Operations put forward its report on official languages. One key recommendation from that report is to transform the GNWT as an employer into a creator of Indigenous languages speakers. This would be a game changer.

Mr. Speaker, the GNWT seems to have already started moving in this direction. The Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Action Plan includes a goal to develop an Indigenous language professional development program. So can the...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it is a fact that we are the Northwest Territories is second only to Nunavut as far as being the territory or province with the highest rate of family violence in Canada. That is still very relevant in our entire territory. We also have a lot of communities that rely quite heavily on public housing across the territory. And our public housing still has a community residency policy where people need to live in a community for a designated period of time before they can even put their name on a waitlist to then wait for housing. And what this...