Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, in regards to that line item -- and forgive me, I'm just working to pull that up here. And that was in my -- that's -- sorry, and I apologize because it was in a previous year's budget, so I don't have it readily available in front of me. And, sorry, it -- so for that specific program, it was historically undersubscribed, so we were able to kind of trim off the top without trimming in to what was traditionally used by people accessing that program. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it's a nontaxable monthly benefit paid to families based on net family income, the number of children, and their ages that they have. I can also just -- the Member couldn't find it here because it actually falls under the Department of Finance, and it's under the Income Tax Act, so it doesn't appear here. And our -- it's very common that our residents don't realize that we pay this benefit because it is provided alongside the Canada child benefit. The Member is correct in that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'd be happy to provide both the letter that I received from the federal government and the ones that went back. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it's not a situation where I'm going through their budget line by line with them. They have base funding that they get through this process here. If, for example, if they have a need for forced growth -- a great example of that that I believe is in this is their -- it, sorry, it is in this, is the forced growth for their lease payments and such. That's something that would come through the financial management board. It would go through our normal vetting processes with that. But line by line, they're not going through the budget with me, and I...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, the department certainly is a group of very enthusiastic and creative people. A lot of them used to actually be in the classroom and wanted to move to the department to hold different roles within education in the territory. So certainly creative, certainly looking for other ways. Whether or not they have partnered specifically with Ecology North, I couldn't say. I can say that as a student in the Northwest Territories, had the opportunity to have Ecology North be within our school system in certain ways and other NGOs across the territory.

Wha...

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, those 60 applications came in prior to the pause last year. So that was a commitment that was made last year before we paused the program in July. And so, really, the decision to honour that commitment was made to be fair to the people that the commitment was made to and then beyond that, we used the 90 -- the 90 allocations that we had left to ensure that we were focusing on urgency and retention. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, one of the biggest differences between the main estimates for 2025-2026 and 2024-2025 is the movement and transfer of the arts funding to industry, tourism and investment. So that transferred not only almost $1.5 million to ITI, but in addition, it also transferred the money available through the Canada Council of the Arts MOU to ITI as well, and that was in the -- that was one point -- roughly $1.5 million plus $275,000. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And absolutely, I love the opportunity to respond to this.

I just want to say a huge thank you to the Member for that comment because I think it really drives home that this isn't, you know, one organization or one entity in the Northwest Territories working in a silo and working alone. It really does, at the end of the day, take everybody working together in order to make these changes, you know, from grassroots in each individual community to really build a stronger, healthier North. And I think that really have to recognize that and celebrate it and, as the...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this is not a conversation between myself and the federal government that -- or the federal minister that just started in January. We have, over the course of my time in this role, had the opportunity to be forming that relationship with the federal minister, have had the opportunity to have conversations with the federal minister around the importance of this program and the importance of building -- continuing to build a workforce in the Northwest Territories. And as we continue to make improvements to our own workforce development here in the...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So I was made aware that it was one of the things that they were considering in a huge spectrum of options in December. I asked the department to immediately sit down and ensure that they understood all of the ramifications of that. Because very clearly, as we're speaking about an MOU, there is not an ability of Aurora College to realize all of the dollars from that -- from that choice and wanted to ensure that they were going into this eyes wide open and wanted to make sure that the board as well had all of the information. By at that point, the board had not...