Julian Morse

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. So just to confirm and make 100 percent sure, we're not looking at service cuts for respite, seniors, or anything related to the long-term care? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I appreciate those comments from the Minister and obviously, you know, she's been busy with us so she can only do so much with one -- I don't know what I'm trying to say here. But there's only one Caitlin. And she's in this building right now so she can't meet so maybe we should wrap so she can go off to her meetings.

But I guess I just wanted to highlight, you know, for the Minister and her staff, you know, this area's a high priority for me. Certainly growing spaces is the big one. You know, in my riding, it's something that I heard from a lot of parents about. There...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. So the Minister can confirm that we're not facing any service cuts this year for these items?

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll leave that as my comments on the business plan for now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are all the questions I have from this section. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The first thing I'd like to ask about is just, you know, I see some new targets in the business plan, and I want to say first and foremost that I am happy to see those targets. I think that was one of my comments last year is that I felt, you know, we had to actually articulate what we were trying to achieve.

One thing I want to ask about, I mean, the targets are still quite vague. For post-secondary, it just says we want to increase them; it doesn't say how much, so it's -- the target is an increased, but it isn't a target, again, and in some cases...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next item is just in the top line of the second paragraph there on page 205, compensation and benefits is reducing by about $2 million. Is this, again, a service level cut of any sort, or can the department help us understand what that -- what's associated with that funding decrease. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So it's the department's opinion effectively that this budget would be going up if not for the changes that were made? Nodding heads is good enough for me, Mr. Chair. And I'm out of my time. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies, I'm not quite sure I understand what the Minister is telling us there. So this item is not actually being reduced, it's just showing as reduced in the budget? Or can you better explain what's meant by the answer.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, with the last minute that I've got here, maybe perhaps what I'll do is, you know, I thought the Member for Yellowknife North made an excellent case for Dechinta in her Member's statement the other day, and certainly I met with this organization, and what the -- what the president of that organization highlighted for me is just that any money that went to Dechinta, particularly in additional money, the things that they could do with dedicated funding would be to employ elders, employ educators, but in particular people -- knowledge holders, Indigenous knowledge...