Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I also would like to express the concerns raised by my honourable friend from Yellowknife North regarding the length of time it takes to approve and issue a remote sensing licence under the current Remote Sensing Satellite Systems Act.

As it stands today, while other jurisdictions have updated their regulatory regimes to accommodate a remote sensing licence in as little as 30 days, Canada still requires two years. The space industry is evolving, and the remote sensing sector is growing all over Canada, including here in the Northwest Territories.

This is a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For clarity, this is page 51, the contribution to Aurora College, $32,421,000, and the reason I asked the question on the detail of how we are spending that money is this essentially accounts for the vast majority of our postsecondary education money. It is a significant investment, and we need to make sure it is being spent right. I appreciate that, many of these comments, the Minister will say have to wait until the completion of the foundational review, but, again, we are seeing the same appropriation being proposed for Aurora College for this budget.

It does not appear...

Thank you. So, as a publicly funded independent institution, why is the Minister able to make management decisions on behalf of the college about programs that are being offered at the college? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister confirm what the status organizationally of Aurora College is? What I mean by that is does this department consider it a public agency, consider it a department of government, a Crown corporation? What is its position functionally to the government? Thank you.

Thank you. Can I get a sense of some examples of what we are contracting out with this money to support these programs? Thank you.

Again, I might not have heard clearly the response to my first question, but the $900,000 here, what is that intended for? Is that just a placeholder, and the money will be reallocated if it is not required? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for the clarification from the Minister. In this section, too, we see arts organizations operating funding in the amount of $460,000, and these are stated as "contributions to provide ongoing operational support to established arts organizations and large cultural events and festivals in the Northwest Territories."

I would like to ask the Minister: if there is dedicated funding to support festivals such as that were just on that list, what is the difference, I guess, between the two funding sources when they are going to the same organization?

What has been...

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.