Alfred Moses

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Pan-territorially, Ministers work with other Ministers and other government through Yukon and Nunavut. Yukon has a really great program where they have even more dollars into a very structured film industry.

I am just wondering if the Minister, even though we are embarking on a pilot project, if this is something he can make more stable following some of the best practices we see in the Yukon.

This year alone, we’ve lost some of the episodes and some of the work that Arctic Air came up with that was due here in the Northwest Territories. If anybody has seen Arctic Air...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In the budget address yesterday, there was mention of a pilot rebate program for the film industry. That’s new to me. It wasn’t brought up when we were going through our main estimates, but it has been a concern for myself, working with people in the film industry. Seeing that there is a pilot rebate program, it kind of shocked me seeing it in the budget address yesterday.

I want to ask the Minister of ITI if he can just elaborate and give us a little bit of detail on this program that’s going to be coming out in this next fiscal year. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Yes, I am referring to all the young leaders that are currently enrolled with the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship through the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation.

Aside from speaking and also speaking at the events and showing events through attending events, does this government offer any type of financial support to this foundation to support our young leaders, specifically here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. On January 9th I was fortunate enough to attend an event here in Yellowknife acknowledging nine of our future leaders across northern Canada, of which four were from the Northwest Territories. In fact, one of them works here in the Legislative Assembly.

In 2010 was the launching of the first Jane Glassco Arctic Fellowship Program, which included 12 recipients from across northern Canada.

In January this was the second group that were recipients to the program. This fellowship is aimed at young Northerners, especially Aboriginal Northerners, aged 25 to 35 who want to...

I appreciate the Minister’s comments on the work that’s been brought forth by the Beaufort-Delta Education Council, and just quoting him he says it’s “very, very successful” and that we have to start investing into this organization.

Right now the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority, through the e-learning program, provides opportunities for three communities to advance their education, higher education, meaning that there are other communities in the coastal regions that aren’t getting the proper, not the proper but the same education that they can.

Would the Minister be willing to invest...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow up with my Member’s statement today. I have questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

In the budget address it mentions that one-third of our NWT children start school already significantly behind in their overall health and development. I want to ask the Minister, with the data collection, does he see those stats as per norm that we see in the small communities?

Would the Minister give us any kind of indication what those stats are in the small communities and how he plans to address those challenges, those problems...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to be pretty blunt about this, I guess, would the Minister be willing to fund the e-learning program with new dollars so that Beaufort-Delta Education can use their allocated funding for other programs and projects that other regions have? Is there new funding in the ERI Initiative coming down the pipes in the 2014-15 fiscal year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I agree with the Minister that we do have a lot of challenges in our smaller communities, especially ones that are isolated.

The Minister and committee have had the opportunity to work with the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority on their e-learning program that provides education tools and education to the small communities using teleconference.

Would the Minister agree that this new e-learning structure is working and is very successful in the Beaufort-Delta region, and is he willing to look at providing additional resources to this project? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to commend the government and their work towards this ’14-15 budget and the budget address that was given to us earlier today. Obviously, we do have some challenges in the Northwest Territories that we have seen since the beginning of this government.

Looking at the budget address and listening very closely to what was in there and what wasn’t in there, where we need to put some focus, one area that kind of caught my attention is one area where the Minister did mention that we must do things differently in our ability to fund programs and services that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I mentioned how this can be the layout or the blueprint to lay out the framework for future shelters throughout the Northwest Territories and not just Inuvik.