Alfred Moses

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.

As I mentioned, we're just in the preliminary stages working with the Department of ITI to develop that framework, which will lead into an action plan. We're also out doing promotion and awareness of our nominee program in the regions. We've just launched a website on October 13th, I believe, and it's got a lot of really good information and testimonials on there.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our department is the lead on the Nominee Program, though responsibility is shared with the Department of ITI. Under the Nominee Program ECE administers the employer-driven program which is comprised of three streams: critical impact workers; skilled workers; and, the NWT express entry. Right now, we're working with the Department of ITI to develop an immigration framework and action plan, and once that is in place that information will be shared with Members moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's exactly what we're doing. When we look at any kind of strategic investments in our infrastructure we've got to put it up against what other needs are in the communities. We have some small communities. For instance, in the last government we had one of our smallest communities that just had a running toilet/washroom. I don't know if the Members remember that. So when we're looking for a new campus, we've got to look at our needs assessment right from our smallest communities and put it up against what's already existing in some of our big communities and regional...

That's exactly why we're going out doing the consulting and engaging with all our stakeholders. We do have three campuses throughout the NWT that meets specific needs for different communities, different groups. We want to make evidence-based decisions and we're going to wait until that report is done, it should be ready, as I said, June of 2017, and be ready for implementation in the 2017-2018 academic year.

The department has already done work in terms of how much a new campus would cost. If we are looking to do a new planning study, that has to go through the capital budget as well. Money needs to go in to develop the schematic design. Moving forward, as I mentioned, we are not going to know what kind of space is needed until we see what that strategic plan looks like. We are waiting for that to be completed before we make any decisions that are going to cost this government and the taxpayers millions of dollars.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we were just awarded the contract for the work to be done. We are going to be engaging a lot of our stakeholders. It is a key priority of our department to make sure that we are working very well with Aurora College to develop the strategic plan. We are going to reach out to community governments, Aboriginal governments, GNWT departments, staff, students, as well as Members. As this has just started up, once we get a timeline and schedule, we will share that with the Members and get their feedback and input into this action plan. Thank you, Mr...

We work it on a casebycase basis, Mr. Speaker, and we try to inform our seniors to try to lengthen out their fuel subsidies throughout the winter months. But, because some of the concerns that were brought up at the end of last winter with some of our seniors that were running out of fuel for their homes under this program, that's why we're doing the review and we're going to be looking at threshold levels, we're going to be looking at the zones. Hopefully, it'll address that need so that seniors won't run out of fuel during the winter months. As I said, we should have that review ready by the...