Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I want to speak about good governance and leadership that I believe we, as MLAs, and we, as the government, should demonstrate. This is my thought on some of the things when I first came on, okay.

Mr. Speaker, when I first became an MLA, I thought the way that I was supposed to act was like a boxer getting into a ring for a big fight when I go into session. That's what I thought, okay. I thought I had to always try to get one over the Cabinet or a Minister. I thought that I had to be strong all the time with everything and with everyone I deal with in...

Thank you. Yeah, that's it.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And I'm sure our leaders are listening, so I guess, you know, I am glad that, you know, that you said -- well, that this government is working really hard to maintain a good working relationship with the Indigenous, which is good. So I know that something -- this kind of program, it's good for other regions as well. So hopefully we will keep it in mind for the next fiscal year, you know, because due to the resources we have.

So this program for -- the transition program that's going to Yellowknife and going to Inuvik, is that going to be operated -- the service...

I see in here community clinics and health centre, there's a decrease. So what programs and services are affected by this decrease?

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the court services, I see in here that for 2023 and then with the main estimate and then there was some increase in 20 -- later on revised estimate. But within this fiscal year, 2024-2025, it still stayed the same. And then there's a large reduction in the Office of the Children's Law, which is an important -- you know, it's -- this office is very important for many of our children that are in care or for -- you know, they provide good services. I just wanted to ask where is the increase made within the court services?

Mr. Speaker, can I have unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Okay, there are some of us MLAs that have four to six communities we represent, just like you, Nahendeh. We all came here wanting to make change. I hope that we as AN Assembly can move forward together in a positive way. We don't always need to be at each other's throat or tear each other down or arguing just for the sake of arguing. Both sides of the House must come together in a good way and work as a team for the people we were elected to represent. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. This Public Utility Board, because it's NTPC or energy regulators, I thought, you know, how come it's not under infrastructure or, you know, ECC because it deals with that's more within their department, so how come it's under EIA? Thank you.

It's not that bad. It's mostly for small communities and regional centres, that we have lots of people living in the regional centres as well that are affected.

So, Mr. Speaker, on Friday the 20242025 Budget was tabled with a $2.2 billion operating budget. The Minister states: This is a practical and realistic budget aimed at reducing our overall expenditures in 20242025 to help restore balance and increase our fiscal capacity to deal with unexpected events.

The Minister also states this budget is about value and efficiency.

Mr. Speaker, I understand we are in a time of fiscal restraint. We need...

Here, gun and gang strategies, okay, 20222023, there's nothing allocated for this fiscal year. It's not in the budget. So I just want to ask the Minister why it's not because we know we have a lot of issues in small communities, and then I'm sure there's a lot of community, you know, Indigenous government and other organizations, they use this money for you know, to help and work with the young people. So it's more of awareness and education program, part of healing. So I just wanted to know why it's not part of this budget this fiscal year.

Yeah, that's what that's what yeah, I agree with you. It's like a commitment. There, so that's good to know. I like that, so. But no, because it's good, you know, because I feel when you look at all the GNWT departments, there's lots of duplications, you know, lots of it's just that it's there's a lot of duplication within government services and I think this is a good way of reducing some because, you know, like there's like, we just talked about the utility boards. There's ECC and Infrastructure and maybe ITI. And so there is overlapping of lots of services so I think this will help to...