Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke about North American Indigenous Games, and my questions are for the Minister of MACA. Mr. Speaker, my first question is: can the Minister advise how the Aboriginal Sports Circle of the NWT uses the funding it receives from the GNWT for the North American Indigenous Games? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Aboriginal Sports Circle receives $663,000. That money was to support Team NWT at NAG. Most of the money actually was spent for team travel. It is expensive to send people from the northern communities and pay for their accommodations while they are down there. Some of the money was used for territorial sports organizations. They were provided grants so that they could complete the selection of their teams for the games, and that is how the money was utilized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the clarification. Mr. Speaker, my next question is: for the next North American Indigenous Games, how will the department support and improve long-term planning in athlete development?
The next Northern Indigenous Games are actually in Winnipeg in 2020, so in the meantime, we are actually doing a sector-wide strategy with all of the stakeholders, sports and recreation organizations to look at gaps, to look at areas that we are duplicating, to look at areas that we could improve. Part of that is looking at how to get more participation for all residents of the Northwest Territories. The other thing that we are doing within that strategy is we will also be implementing the Truth and Reconciliation recommendations surrounding sports, as well.
It is good to see that long-term planning is getting under way. I know the year before, the planning was maybe about three or four months ahead. I think long-term planning for Indigenous youth and participation will help youth in remote communities. Mr. Speaker, my final question is: in what other ways does Municipal and Community Affairs support their participation of Indigenous youth in sports?
The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs recognizes that physical literacy, physical activity, is actually something that we need to be promoting with youth from the very beginning until actually when people pass on. There are a number of ways that we actually support, specifically for Indigenous children and youth. We support the Aboriginal Sport Circle, which was stated with nearly $1 million for sports programming. That includes the traditional Indigenous Games, including the annual school championships that they do. We support them with canoeing, lacrosse, and archery, snowshoe making, the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships, and an annual awards program. These programs are specifically for Indigenous youth, but we also have programs that are offered for all youth, and all youth includes Indigenous youth, too. Like I said, that starts from the very young. Things like the After-School Physical Activity Program that gives funding for schools to support their things. We give things right from there to our high-performance athletic grants that we provide.
We also do things that often people don't see as related to promoting youth in sports, but we do. The Youth Ambassador Program and the NWT Youth Leadership Strategy are all about role modelling, and role modelling health living, and part of healthy living is to actually take part in physical activities. We support activities from birth till the end, and we will continue to do so.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
