Alfred Moses

I just want to make a quick comment on the Productive Choices program. I do understand that when clients come and get funding, that the two choices they could possibly do is get some counselling or go do upgrading. In some instances what I’ve been hearing is that anyone who’s going through income assistance will go get their counselling. It’s not an effective counselling. They’re going there to get, possibly, a document signed, and then they take it to the income support office to get their funding. So they’re using up space which is really needed, because we have mental health issues in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, just want to make the same comments as my colleagues here in regard to the income support. It’s very disturbing to hear that the large clientele is between the ages of 19 and 29. That’s very shocking and disappointing. Kind of contrary to Ms. Bisaro’s comments, the line item for income assistance is down from last year’s estimates by $60,000. Is the department looking at, due to our economic downturn, the increase in our general rate application, the lack of jobs in the communities? Does the department see more applications for income assistance, and if so, how...

Not at this time, Mr. Chairman. I think Mr. Bromley had some questions here.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not too sure how much more I can add to Mr. Bromley’s statement. I think he said it very well. It gave us all the information that we need to go ahead and make a decision on this.

Being new to the government, it is just something that I assumed that this government was working on and taking care of, and to be in here now and make these changes and be part of it, I am very honoured to help work on taking this initiative through.

Early childhood zero to three years old, Mr. Bromley hit it right on the head with the brain and biological developments, the language, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a lot of my colleagues have mentioned, the importance of early childhood in the ages zero to three. If we don’t put our services and our investments into this initiative, we’re going to be failing our students as they progress in life, as they get into middle school, elementary school and as seniors. We don’t have to look too far to see our graduation rates of the NWT as well as the money that we’re going to be putting into inclusive schooling here.

I want to speak to a specific issue. We know that programs are needed just as much as space facilities for our children...

No further questions, Madam Chair, but duly noted on the structure of the building, and thanks.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had one question in regard to the incident that happened in Inuvik this year. We had that windstorm that blew the roof off the airport. I was just wondering if the department allocated funds for the repair of that roof and whether or not there was a study into the structure of the building to see if there was any more damage that was done from that storm. Thank you.

I really applaud the department for trying to get residents off of income support and anyone that’s going through income support through their Productive Choices program. I just wanted to ask a question. Has this program ever been evaluated and have they ever seen the effectiveness of this program?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the activity education and culture under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment Main Estimates 2012-2013 on page 10-17 at this time. Thank you.