Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Carrying on to my questions for the Minister of MACA on sports, my first question, Mr. Speaker: the Traditional Games Championship is led by the Aboriginal Sports Circle NWT. How does MACA support this organization? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend all the coaches, the teachers, volunteers, Aboriginal Sports Circle, as well as staff from Municipal and Community Affairs who put on a very successful traditional games this weekend. We have a strong partnership, a strong tradition of working with the Aboriginal Sports Circle.
I do want to let all Members know that, at my Ministers of sports meeting, we did promote our Traditional Games. I have invited the National Aboriginal Sports Circle representatives to come up to the Northwest Territories, as well as our Minister responsible for sport, to look at how we incorporate sport and culture together in our traditions. We do have a strong partnership with the Aboriginal Sports Circle. In terms of the delivery of the traditional games, we do fund them up to about $125,000. Moving forward, other games that we in this budget have dollars allocated for are multi-sports games, as well.
Thanks to the Minister for that reply. It was really encouraging when I witnessed the opening ceremony this past Thursday in one of the schools here, the William McDonald School I believe it was. It was really inspiring to see children from all of the communities, the remote communities, coming into the capital. Just the excitement of coming into the capital and being able to go to McDonald's is a privilege. That bonding is taken back home through the games, and I really could commend the Minister in supporting the continuation of the social foundation.
My next question is: what else does MACA do in supporting traditional games events like this championship?
William McDonald School, that is. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
We do continue to support traditional games, whether they are held here in Yellowknife, the annual games, that allow all schools to submit a team. The great thing about that is you have four males and four female representatives, so everyone gets to participate. That is really great to see. Aboriginal Sport Circle and MACA offer support to get students and their coaches here. We do also provide about $50,000 to the Aboriginal Sports Circle so that they can get out to the communities and promote traditional games in the communities where a lot of the students or youth might not be able to come to Yellowknife. That is one thing that they are doing, and we support that and promote it.
As I mentioned, when we did speak at our Minister of sports meeting, one thing that we did promote from myself was increased funding from the federal government for all games, whether it is the Arctic Winter Games, Canada Games, Canada Winter Games, Summer Games, Winter Games, Westerns. Then, as I mentioned, we invited our leadership to come up and see how successful and how great we do in promoting our traditional games here in the Northwest Territories.
This is more of a comment here. I look forward to working with the Minister as we go through the budget deliberations on funding allocations to support this foundation. Mahsi.
Masi. Comment to the Executive. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
