Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Here I see water research and monitoring aquatics. Okay, the budget has not changed since 2023-2024 fiscal year, and it says it stays consistent all the way up to the next fiscal year. So I just wanted to ask the Minister if -- because it's -- if traditional knowledge are being used, especially with water research and monitoring and is the government -- Indigenous government or Indigenous organization are consulted as well? Because I know that as an Indigenous person, we heard it many times from my elders and other people talking saying that, you know, this is -- like, they love their land...

Thank you for the info. Water management and stewardship, my colleagues, they talked about it too as well, and we know that climate change, there is a reduction. I believe he said climate change preparedness program was sunsetted. Was that federal government funding? Thank you.

School attendance: Mr. Speaker, Members have recently discussed education in our small communities. The graduation rate in the Northwest Territories fell below 60 percent for 2022-2023 school year. The Government of the Northwest Territories 2022-2023 report notes that attendance rates are trending downwards across the NWT. Attendance is as low as 63.5 percent in small communities, and less than 60 percent of students attend in some grades according to the NWT statistics.

Mr. Speaker, we can blame the pandemic for these declining rates, but this has been happening for over a decade. A 2013...

Thank you. And then for the disaster compensations, it's -- you know, it says here that, you know, grants available to hunters and trappers to replace equipment lost as a result of natural disaster.

That -- I know this is for natural disaster, but there's also the one for the forest fire as well. So there are two separate, you know. So I just wanted to ask the Minister if -- I know that, you know -- I got quite a few phone calls because of the wildfire. It's within the next section. But I -- that is also a natural disaster as well, you know, but -- so I know that I got a lot of phone calls...

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Fur price program and CHAP and then take your -- take a child trapping, those are all good programs. I know that they are all good programs, and they are being well used by many of the community members and schools because we use those for food, and it's a good learning experience for the young people. They learn. In the whole process, they learn to have respect for their land, for the environment. And so it's good in many ways, you know, like, because there is a lot of respect. We're trying to get our young people -- we can never -- we know that -- because...

We know what happened with forest fire 2023 and 2024. So climate change community adaptations, that too -- okay, 2023-2024 was low, and it's stayed consistent all the way. Why -- you know, like, and here we -- the Minister did a statement for ready for wildfires. Why this budget has not changed for the community -- for the community to deal with the climate change and adaptations? Thank you.

You know, climate change is not something new. It's been recognized by many of our elders in the past before, and it's been discussed over ten years now by a lot of our elders that are no longer here with us. So they've been talking about it for a long time because they've noticed changes from before where from 20, 30 years ago, it's not the same no more. That's what we heard many times by elders. So with that in mind, I just wanted to ask the Minister if -- I know that climate change preparedness program helped many of the communities, so is there any way that that program will be replaced...

Thank you. For the transboundary waters -- and I know that a lot of good questions was asked by Members. So I just wanted to ask the Minister how many active transwater boundary agreements we have in the NWT that's currently active with our neighboring territory and provinces? Thank you.

Okay, my time is up for.

Thank you. Thank you for the information. It's good. The other part too is the conservation planning, and it's the same. You know, it's -- it's -- that is also important too for -- because we're trying to teach our young people about the conservation as well. So according to the budget here, for the new fiscal year there is a big change within the budget from previous. It went down significantly from 645 to 215. Why; why is there a big change within that budget?