Kieron Testart

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will take this opportunity to acknowledge the recent announcement of additional funding for the Arts Council and commend the government for their efforts towards supporting the arts in the Northwest Territories.

I have some questions about the support to northern performers item, which is on page 37, and on page 38, it gives some detail on the purposes of it: "Grants to performing artists, festival organizations and events, community governments and band councils for the promotion of performing arts in NWT communities."

An ongoing area of advocacy for many of my...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The reason why I raised that here is it does deal with policy legislation and broad strategic framework, including comprehensive framework for evaluating programs, setting and monitoring performance measurements and targets. Is the current arts funding evaluated by this division or by this activity? Are we evaluating our arts programming and seeing what its impact is as we deal with education funding? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is good news. Since the changes were made to the program, what have we seen as a result of the increased spending? Have we seen more affordable daycare spaces, or more daycare spaces? Are there any tangible outcomes from this investment that we can see? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure if that's any clearer, but I'll put it plainly and not hypothetically: is this new tax going to disproportionately affect residents of the City of Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So my question was not: are the obligations of students receiving the scholarship being met? It is: are we actually bringing home the recipients of these scholarships? So, essentially, if the reason we are granting the scholarship is to train more northern workers in this field, is it working? Are we getting people back? Thank you.

As I feared, this is a revenue grab by government, and I'm not one of those Members who are looking for new ways to increase this. I think the federal government has its hands strong on how we can actually raise taxes. My question is this new tax proposal: how much of it are we going to retain and how much of it is going to be clawed back through our funding agreements with Ottawa?

I thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your allowances. This is confusing, or it was confusing, and hopefully we are a bit closer to understanding all of the issues. For me, the important thing is that the formulas are changing, and that is fine. I would like to ask questions about the early childhood worker scholarship. That is on page 42. The activity is listed as grants to support fulltime, facetoface, postsecondary education in early childhood development at the diploma level or higher. Is the policy intention of this to retain those workers here in the Northwest Territories...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Finally, with the acknowledgment from the federal government that the deadline for the retail models of cannabis distribution have been pushed back, is the Minister open to working with stakeholders and with this side of the House to iron out some of these details to create more opportunities for private sector distribution, for mail order distribution, for co-op distribution, for production of cannabis in the Northwest Territories? Because we have more time to work on this legislation. Is the Minister more open to those discussions and potentially changing the way...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, am going to ask the Minister if he can clarify this budget commitment to increase junior kindergarten funding or the inclusive education side of the junior kindergarten funding, because I am still unclear. The Minister spoke to a lapse in funding that has allowed the department to fully fund inclusive education and that the mains could not be printed in time for us to see that in the document here, so I would like to ask: where can I find the funding that has lapsed?

As one of the Minister's witnesses said, there is lapsed funding, and that is where we are getting...

We have a way forward document that lays out how the government plans to distribute cannabis products in the Northwest Territories, and mail order is an option for those communities that will not have access to cannabis stores. How are we going to tax mail order products? There have been concerns raised about lost revenue. How are we going to tax mail order cannabis?