Kieron Testart

Mr. Speaker, Ramadan begins this week. Many Muslims in the North and around the world will begin a month-long spiritual journey of fasting, prayer, and reflection to honour the revealing of the holy Koran to Prophet Mohammed. During this hallowed month, members of Islam fast during daylight hours to increase their patience, closeness to God, and generosity towards those less fortunate. This is a time when our vibrant Muslim community here in the North invites their neighbours and friends to share their evening meal Iftar, recite passages from the Koran together, emboldening each other to be at...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Finally, just this is more of a comment, but when this program rolls out or when the new benefit is, having something like a calculator available on the ECE website and sharing that with the public would be, I think, a step in the right direction to let people know exactly what their benefits were, in fact, beforehand. If you know what the calculations are going to be and the it's just a matter of going through the legislative changes, communicating that with the public I think will ease a lot of the economic burdens that people are going through right now, so good peace...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Is that individual income or total household income, the $80,000 ceiling I believe the deputy minister indicated? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If the Minister could give us a firm date in August? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My final question involves the heritage centres. Is that an actual increase to funding for heritage centres? Could the Minister indicate who accesses that funding and how it is used? I would just like to gain a better understanding. I know there is not a lot of well-celebrated heritage centres in the North, shall I say. It would be nice to see more of them roll out and take a bigger role in underpinning our tourism strategy and really promoting and preserving our cultures and minority languages as well. If we could just get a better understanding of how that money is used...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not sure if my math adds up because not everything is clear what is going into the funding. Does the new arts operating funding, versus all these re-profiling, there has been no changes to funding? All funding remains intact from the previous year or has there been a reduction? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Well, if it's not about spending new money, maybe we can ask the Minister if he will commit to avoiding any cuts to our already excellent support for youth and sport in the Northwest Territories.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I spoke earlier, athletes from the NWT, including many from my own constituency, will be competing in the upcoming Arctic Winter Games. It's evident that we are giving the necessary support for athletes competing in these games, but what about other athletes throughout the Territories who have not been so fortunate as to gain entry into these games?

Cynthia Simmons, a proud Northerner and an amazing speed skater, is competing for a chance at gold at the Special Olympics Canada Winter Games this week in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. In fact, she is the sole...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I definitely did not get a commitment, but I look forward to working with the Minister on these discussions going forward. I do think, as a champion of sport and youth, though, this should be an area that he finds easy to support, so I'll ask again if he’ll remain committed to sport and recreation in the Northwest Territories through enhanced funding, or at least keeping funding the same.

I know that the Minister is very keen on sports and a real champion. In fact, recently he committed almost $25 million to build the athletes' village for the Canada Winter Games.

---Laughter

Given that, will the Minister commit to allocating some of those funds and improving our programs for sport-oriented training and healthy community initiatives, in particular for youth development in the Northwest Territories?