Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our JK to 12 education system is based on the goal of ensuring that all students are grounded in the rich and diverse history, culture, language, and heritage of our peoples in the Northwest Territories. As you know, we do fund all of our Indigenous governments that play an integral part in working with our schools and in the classrooms. We do have the Elders in the Schools Program, where we are currently revising our Aboriginal languages curriculum, Indigenizing education, and we always promote to our schools to ensure that our elders are in fact...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I believe our program has a lot of incentives for our students who do have a forgiveness loan. We also have zero per cent interest on loans, and the Northern Bonus, as the Member alluded to. Mr. Speaker, because the Northern Bonus is classified as a grant, therefore it is a taxable benefit and recipients are issued actually a T4A slip.

I want to let the Member know that our department is currently reviewing this program, the Northern Bonus program, to determine if there are any alternative ways to provide this benefit without the tax implication on the students. For...

Currently, there is no jurisdiction in all of Canada that has legislated living wage as part of minimum wage policy. I feel that, the way we look at our minimum wage and review that minimum wage every two years, we are doing what is best for not only the employees, but as I mentioned earlier, what's best for the employers. I can bring this to Cabinet and have those discussions. At this time, we are going to continue with the process of how we develop and determine what a minimum wage is every two years.

Yes, I know one of our best programs that we do have at Aurora College is the Nursing Degree Program, and we're also working on this foundational review that's going to address some of the accreditation quality assurance concerns that Members have brought up on numerous occasions. That foundational review, we should have that to me by the end of this month, and we'll be taking a look at those recommendations that are going to be in that final report moving forward. I hear what the Member is saying, and moving forward, we want to make sure that anyone who takes any programs with any of our post...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just a little information for Members and the public: the Minimum Wage Committee was made in 2013, and its sole purpose was to meet and review relevant information, research, and data to determine suitable options for a change to the minimum wage.

Every two years, they review this area of the minimum wage. They bring options to myself, and we make the decisions on what meets the needs of not only the employees, but also the employers. We have to make sure that there is a fine balance and that we don't put extra hardships on our employers when we do look at increases to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to also welcome and recognize Catherine Lafferty, Director of Community Development and Indigenous Education for Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, as well her little entourage of supporters and people that do the work in the organization. Welcome. Mahsi.

As Members know, we did make some changes when the Canada Child Benefit came into place, as well as changes to our own legislation for the NWT Child Benefit, to help more low-to-moderate-income families on that area. We have been working with the campuses in Fort Smith, Inuvik, and Yellowknife to address those, and we have heard that as a concern that childcare is important for students who are going to school. We are also working on how to create affordable and accessible childcare in the 11 communities that don't have childcare currently. That poses a barrier in itself, and we have to find...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we can start off in terms of how we support our post-secondary students, Indigenous or non, with our Student Financial Assistance program. We have made some improvements and enhancements to those over the years, but really, what it comes down to is starting very young, and we have made some very big investments in early childhood.

We are looking at our educational renewal initiatives from the JK-to-12 system. We are looking at creating new pathways to graduation in the high school system. It takes a combination of all of those investments that will see more...

I do know that College nordique as well as Dechinta are looking to expand their roles. I think that was a great program that they did this summer, travelling up and down the Mackenzie River. We continue to support these post-secondary institutions, as well as looking at ways we can help sustain the work that they do. That is one of the reasons that we did enter into that multi-year agreement with Dechinta and increased their funding.

As I have mentioned in this House, over a period of time we are creating this overarching legislation that is going to look at accreditation, quality assurance...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we want to ensure that any programs that we provide to residents of the Northwest Territories have the supports and that they have the skills necessary to be into the labour market within the Northwest Territories. We also want to make sure that, when we are investing dollars into our programs, we are getting a good output of skilled, trained workers to meet the labour market demands.

We also support a lot of our other programs. We support College nordique. We signed a multi-year agreement with Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, and we also increased...