Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move that the chair rise and report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, over the last three and a half years, I have spoken about oral health on numerous occasions in this House. I have focused on the need of the GNWT to change and modernize the Dental Auxiliaries Act and the regulatory environment of dental hygienists to improve preventative oral health in small communities, and I have focused on the cost of the NWT's lack of equitable access to preventative oral health care. What I want to tell this House why it is important that I am moving forward with this bill.

We live in a unique part of the world with unique needs. In...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's pretty obvious that that first phone call that we received the very next morning after we were elected is a memorable one because it's definitely my first memory of talking to Tim. I had never met Tim before, and I had never spoken with Tim before. And I remember being so terrified on the phone that when I hung up, I realized I had absolutely no idea what he had just told me.

Mr. Speaker, Tim has a lot of passion for his role as Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and that is very obvious. He has a lot of love for the Northwest Territories, and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, committee wishes to consider Committee Report 4919(2), Report on the 20212022 Review of the Official Languages Act; and, Committee Report 5119(2), Report on Indigenous Representation in the Northwest Territories Public Service. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, that Bill 80, Dental Hygienists Profession Statute Amendment Act, be read a second time.

Mr. Speaker, Bill 80 amends the Dental Auxiliaries Act and the Health and Social Services Professions Act to

Require the Minister to recommend to the Commissioner regulations under the Health and Social Services Professions Act on or before March 31st, 2024, to regulate the practice of dental hygienists;

Designate the profession of dental hygienists as a profession to which that act applies, effective April 1st, 2024;

Tr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, anybody that was either present or listening to Committee of the Whole yesterday may have noticed that it was basically an extension of a Standing Committee on Social Development meeting here for most of the day. And two of the things that we covered in Committee of the Whole yesterday were reports that were done by the standing committee, but those reports could not have been in the way that they were done without the participation of the residents of the Northwest Territories. They really are the voices of the residents of the Northwest Territories. And...

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...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services expedite and streamline the application, approval, and reporting requirements for the community suicide prevention fund. Thank you, Madam Chair.