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...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, it's an important distinction that while we are adapting the BC -- or sorry, while we are migrating to the BC curriculum, we are doing adaptations to that curriculum to reflect the Northwest Territories, so it's an NWT adapted BC curriculum. Within that curriculum, there are a number of climate education that intentionally reflect the Northwest Territories that are being implemented. And so first off, Mr. Speaker, there's the new Northern Studies 30 course that -- it was developed here in the Northwest Territories in partnership with...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, certainly the business plans were developed specific to the nominee program with the previous allocations in mind, not expecting -- I don't think anybody across the country expected their allocations to be cut in half, and so we will certainly have to pivot to ensure that we remain in line with the guidelines afforded to us by the federal government.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'd like to pass back to the deputy minister.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, the increase in our budgeted items actually goes from $43,859,000 to $44,583,000. The difference in the actuals of what we spent in 2023-2024 was even significantly less than what we had originally budgeted in 2023-2024, and the reason for that is because of the delayed implementation of the new income assistance program. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So absolutely, Madam Chair, I don't think it would be a shock to anybody in this room that I am obsessed with the SNAP program. And the Member is 100 percent right, I want to see this program in not just every region. I would love us to be overambitious and see it in every single community because I think at the end of the day, we would -- it would serve the entire territory in such a positive way.

So this program, really, over the course of the last four years has exploded in numbers, and that is in gratitude to the staff at ECE that have really hit the...