Denny Rodgers

That's it on this section. But more money. I want that $7 million in here.

I find this very frustrating. I do. Because this is such an important issue, and we look at you know, we regularly have we approve supplementals for infrastructure projects that are tens of millions of dollars over budget that we either mismanaged or got out of control. We can blame COVID and so on and so forth. And something like this, something like this that's just so important, to keep professional people in our territory, not only providing the services of whether it be doctors or nurses or teachers or lawyers or child care workers, but also coaching our kids in hockey and buying the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the committee would like to consider Tabled Document 9320(1), 20242025 Main Estimates, Department of Health and Social Services and Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know oftentimes, you know, some of our issues are communicating what we're doing in our regions. And I'm not sure if working with other departments such as ITI or ECE, can the Minister kind of let me know how the Government of the Northwest Territories is ensuring that our communities that are eligible for the harvester support grant and the country foods subsidies are being made aware of this support? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement I spoke about the inspiring work initiated by the Indigenous governments in my region in providing food baskets and country foods to residents or beneficiaries up there. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs and our Premier. I know he's well versed in all things food security, and I'd like to ask him how is the Government of the Northwest Territories working with Indigenous government in the Inuvik region to address food security? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, Mr. Chair, my colleague from Range Lake is not wrong. Certainly I am a huge proponent of positions, particularly senior positions being not centralized in Yellowknife, but being in the regions, such as the regional director position, which I would love to see as an ADM position. I would love to see many ADM positions or any new ADM positions moved to the regions and/or new positions go to the regions. Having said that, I don't want to delete money from this budget. I know the department has done their diligence on why they want it. I do question and I would fight...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, again, I apologize. I wasn't supposed to take this long. But, yeah, listen, our country is ran on the fact that if you make more, you pay more, and that's how our country's run, and I don't have an issue with that at all. Look at our tax brackets, and you can see that, Mr. Chair. But, again, I my only comment and I don't expect an answer is that I don't know why we have to be across the board with these things. We can look at individual programs and income testing differently as far as I'm concerned. But thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I understand that. But is that not the touch point? Is that not the issue that seems to be what's causing grief? Or is that someone for example, I've heard stories that are on income support and then I know this doesn't qualify for a higher income but then would take a I won't say menial, but a small parttime job on the weekends, then lose the income support benefits, then left with no benefits at all. So and then same applies for someone who's making that you know, what is a living wage? I mean, there's way more and you can't really compare us obviously to the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I won't stand between us and dinner. Just very briefly, two comments or two questions I guess.

The first one I guess from again, from listening and from what I understand about the extended health benefits. Would it not solve some problems if we were just to look at increasing the income threshold? Would it not resolve some of the issues I'm hearing? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for that answer. And I look forward to that information.

One final one, Mr. Speaker, I know that the Minister spoke about the funding, the $1.7 million. Can he speak specifically what the department's doing to support the work of the community food banks in Inuvik, please?