Alfred Moses

As you heard in the Budget Address, we have that initial investment of $1.5 million this year, and then we will be rolling out the 2.7 before the end of the 18th Legislative Assembly.

In terms of some funding, that other funding, working with our education authorities, we do fund our education authorities $152 million every year. We've asked our education authorities to look within their budgets to find about 2 per cent to help offset the costs. We believe that the education authorities have the leadership, the fiscal management skills, and the financial flexibility to be able to cover the...

I am aware of the request that was made from community justice in Fort McPherson, and we will be bringing this attention forward to the departments responsible and seeing how we can look at reviewing that proposal and whether or not we can fund the program.

Obviously, our communities that are on the road system are ones where we find some of our biggest concerns with alcohol, with drugs, and I know that it's something that wants to be addressed. I guess we are in the process of reviewing that proposal right now, and, as soon as we come up with a solution, we'll get back to the Member.

Schools will be making their own decisions regarding the details of the classes, the teachers, and the programs that best meet the needs of their students. As I mentioned, we believe that our education authorities have the leadership and the financial management skills. They do it on a regular annual basis when enrolments are low, that they were able to shift things around, and we believe that our school authorities have the tools to do that.

Thank you. As I mentioned, we do have a lot of partnerships. The strategy is going to reflect what we are hearing from the businesses, industry, and the dollars that we have already allocated to the labour market areas is going to be same thing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member wants a firm date. We should have it released by April.

We currently have a lot of partnerships moving forward where we continue to fund. We have labour market agreements where we work with municipal communities. We also work with businesses. We have a small communities employment program that works with communities to help address some of these needs that are needed. For apprentices and the program to move forward, right now we can't put any dollar figures to it when we don't have a strategy, and that strategy is going to come out in April.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, we are working on developing a strategic plan that we have worked with many industry partners, businesses, to get the input. We do know there are challenges out there in terms of practices. We have also heard this when we were at the mineral roundup working with certain industry. We worked with Aboriginal groups as well. The Aboriginal governments that came down to mineral roundup also brought this up. We are working on a strategy right now that we are hoping to have brought before the House sometime this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled "Skills 4 Success 4-Year Action Plan 2016-2020." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned, Aboriginal Head Start in particular is one that we've heard some concerns. Our staff has sat down with the managers and the staff on numerous occasions. We've also had the superintendents of the Beaufort-Delta Education Council work with the schools and Aboriginal Head Start to make sure that it's moving forward in a good manner and the working relationship is good.

We continue to do those consultations with Aboriginal Head Start, as well as all our other early childhood providers. As I mentioned, on August 24th we met with the Canadian Public Health Agency of Canada to inform...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's always a pleasure to see our constituents from the communities in the Chamber, here. I would like to recognize one of my constituents from Inuvik Boot Lake, Ms. Judy McLeod. Welcome. Thank you.