Kieron Testart

Thank you. I wasn't asking a policy question, but I appreciate the Minister's comments. I think there is more room to go. Are there client-facing service officers attached to procurement who can listen to concerns from the public directly? Thank you.

Thank you. That would be helpful. Can the Minister commit to doing that, and further include to do more of a qualitative analysis of whether or not this procurement outreach is working? It is fine to log participants and meetings, but those are all output-based metrics. If we don't know that 200 participants is statistically important to easing understanding of our procurement policies within the business community, it is just a number. Can the department commit to putting more qualitative analysis towards this exercise and reporting on it annually, either in business plans or some other...

If I could just get some information clarified: I heard both 60 participants and 200 participants for the last fiscal year. Which number is accurate? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister seems to be answering questions that aren't being asked. Nobody is asking industry not to pay these rates. We're talking about the rates, and whether or not they can be rebalanced to be fairer, given the government's rate. Florists and yarn and fabric stores pay $2.50, again, compared to 88 cents. Will the Minister sit down with industry and have a meaningful conversation with them so that he can get a better understanding of what their concerns are? Quite clearly, he doesn't get it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Film Commissioner and the office around the Film Commissioner works very hard to do exactly that, and I think the additional support will be great, but marketing and bringing productions here is only half the equation. The way to expand the industry is to actually build that local production capacity so you can have creators and film crews and technicians and engineers and all those people who make movies permanently based here. That's the way we can diversify the economy as well. Local economies in regions that have been successful in this have always built very...

I think we're well aware of the purpose of the commission. The Minister in response to the previous questions mentioned the GNWT rate which is about 93 cents. I just wonder if that applies across the board to all GNWT employees, all GNWT departments, regardless of the actual work being done? Is there only one rate for the Government of the Northwest Territories?

Thank you. I am not disagreeing 100 percent. I think that this is doing a good job. It's just that we could be doing an even better job, and of course, there were changes to SEED that have allowed the program to flow a bit more broadly throughout all of the regions of the territory. Doing the best job that we can with the available resources isn't doing better. We are looking at a future of recession. We are looking at economic hardship ahead. No one denies that. We should be using funding like this and resources like this that, A, we know work; B, we know that entrepreneurs are readily...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister. I very much appreciate that. If the results of this survey confirmed these concerns that have been brought forward today, is the Minister willing to go that extra distance and commit to at least exploring a possibility of adding more money into the program to address these shortfalls? Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry, I wasn't looking for deficit numbers, but that is helpful. If the SEED fund had the available funding, what is the amount of applications that would have been approved under those conditions? Thank you.

I mentioned a number of concerns in my Member's statement, so I'll go through each one of them, but does ECE through the Minister currently have a plan to address the medical screening, or lack thereof, for children who are coming into these programs?