Caitlin Cleveland

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services establish an Indigenous Advisory Body SubCommittee specifically for child and family services. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In favour.

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services establish a recruitment strategy to increase the number of Indigenous foster families, including encouraging extended families to care for children by providing additional financial resources and support. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I know colleagues have questions so I will sit down, thank you.

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services lead work with communities to establish culturally safe and genderinclusive family violence emergency shelters in each Northwest Territories community with sustainable funding. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on this one here I was looking for kind of commitments around what conversations are happening at federal tables in order to protect NWT businesses in contracts that they have entered into before COVID, before inflation, and that they are now bound to in this new market. And especially where we heard today a contract was signed in 2019, it is now 2022, and the work is still being expected to be on time well, it's not on time, on budget, under the same scope. And so you how is the GNWT working with the federal government to protect northern...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess just further to my series of questions, I know that that we're you know, potentially the GNWT is not currently looking into different ways to access immigration, and I understand that there are a lot of different pulls within the government. But one of the things that is very clear is that increasing our population size is the biggest way to increase our revenue source here in the territory. It's it's one of the easiest ways to increase our revenue source.

And so having people working at increasing our our population size off the side...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that things take time, but I think we also have the benefit of the fact that we're not trying to reinvent the wheel, that the Yukon really has already established a program that works well in the North and that it is something that the NWT could potentially take and change to suit the needs of the Northwest Territories and what Northerners here in the NWT want to see. So I hope that the government will continue taking the steps to move that forward.

Mr. Speaker, my next question is given the vital role of that immigration has...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment as the Minister responsible for the nominee program.

The Yukon government set up a dedicated Ukrainian family support desk just recently. It provides information on federal programs to assist with immigration and family reunification, connects employers who would offer employment to Ukrainians arriving in the Yukon, and guides Ukrainians looking for employment opportunities in the Yukon.

Is the Minister willing to set up a similar proactive service supporting immigration efforts...

Mr. Speaker, we have arrived at the routine session day where I speak to proactively increasing our population size to achieve our labour market needs and grow the economic potential of our territory. So settle in, friends, as I plant a wish list for immigration.

First is a shift to relationship building that pulls immigration staff out of offices and into our communities through an industryfocused effort to support economic development by supporting unfulfilled NWT staffing needs. Establish an Immigration Advisory Council that serves as an expert panel to recommend improvements to current...