Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are continually reviewing and updating our income security programs to make sure that they respond to the needs and realities of Northwest Territories residents. All program changes are made based on research and analysis to ensure that these programs are well-managed and help residents across the North.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment increased the Northwest Territories Child Benefit in July 2017, and we raised the Senior Citizen Supplementary Benefit in September 2017. Mr. Speaker, we will soon implement additional improvements that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize my constituency assistant, Ms. Ray Solotki. She is here with us this week. She is chaperoning a couple of our Pages, Mataya Gillis and Tyanna Bain, who are very strong ambassadors in the sport of curling for the Northwest Territories and put the NWT on the map with their junior curling.

As always, to the youth, welcome to the two grade 6 classes from Weledeh, and, to your educators, thank you for all of the work that you do for our students. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Francophone community is a vibrant part of the multicultural mosaic of the Northwest Territories. As we move into the 20th Rendez-vous de la Francophonie, from March 1st to 21st, we have some milestones to mark and events to celebrate.

According to the 2016 census, there were 4,280 French-speaking residents across the Northwest Territories, nearly 10 per cent of the total population. While the majority of the Francophone residents live in Yellowknife, there are also large numbers in Hay River, Fort Smith, and Inuvik. This is why, Mr. Speaker, when the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today is national Pink Shirt Day. Wearing pink today symbolizes that we, as a society, will not tolerate bullying of any kind. This day of recognition and action was started in 2007 by two young men in Nova Scotia, David Sheppard and Travis Price. As an act of protest and support, they gave pink shirts to their fellow students, after a grade 9 student was bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school.

These two young men raised global awareness of bullying, starting from one school in Cambridge, Nova Scotia. In the last year, more than 180 countries have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is great to see the youth again attending the Legislative Assembly session and proceedings. I believe the students are from William MacDonald School, as well as we have some students from Quebec who are here on an exchange, so welcome to Yellowknife. Welcome to the Northwest Territories. I appreciate that you made the opportunity to come visit and check out the Legislative Assembly.

Also, I would like to recognize our Grand Chief for the Gwich'in tribal council, who is Bobbie Jo Greenland. Denny Rodgers is also here with us, and chair of IVC, Dang Gruben and James...

Mr. Speaker, on April 1, 2018, the minimum wage in the Northwest Territories will increase from $12.50 to $13.46 per hour, the third highest minimum wage in Canada.

To ensure that our minimum wage continues to work for employees and employers, the minimum wage rate is reviewed by a Minimum Wage Committee every two years. The decision to increase the minimum wage to $13.46 per hour was informed by options and extensive research provided by the Minimum Wage Committee, including current minimum and average hourly wages in other Canadian jurisdictions, as well as social and economic influences...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I see unanimous consent to move to item number 6 on the orders of the day, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Unanimous consent granted

Some of our productive choices are trying to help people come out of poverty, so education, counselling, volunteering, where we're encouraging our income assistance clients to participate in a productive choice as they receive income from the GNWT in my department, but we're also trying to help them get out of poverty by getting the counselling that they need, looking at also getting the skills and training that they need, their education, and volunteering in their community.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are aware of the pilot program that's currently going on in Ontario. I believe it started up in June of 2017. The department is closely looking at that pilot program. In the meantime, we continue to make enhancements to our income assistance programs here, in the Northwest Territories. We want to make sure that all of our families, Northerners, do have the basic food and clothing, help them with rent and other expenses. As we are reviewing this pilot project, we're continuing to support our clients who are on an income assistance.

Our client service officers do a great job of meeting with our clients to ensure that they're up-to-date on their productive choices but also make sure that they're actively seeking to get employment and getting the services that they need as well as counselling that they need. I believe we're already doing some of that work with our income assistance programs. We're going to wait until this pilot project is complete with Ontario, but we are closely monitoring to see how that is impacting residents in Ontario and if that's something we can possibly look at here, in the Northwest Territories...