Alfred Moses

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.

One other thing that I want to highlight is that, out of that $4.2 million that we budgeted in the last budget, up to the present we have almost spent all of that money, and I am confident that we will have all of that funding in the Small Community Employment Fund spent by the end of this fiscal year. Of course, we want to look at other ways that we can partner with whether it's another organization, possibly through a wage subsidy or partnering in share costs for projects, as well as looking at some of the other programs that are in other departments on how we can work together so that we...

As I mentioned, we are putting in career and education advisors as well this academic year. The whole education renewal that we have been working on over the past number of years is going to hopefully impact the way our students learn, the way our students succeed, the way our students are able to graduate, right from the JK to 12 system. With our new investment in the career and education advisors, I think we are going to be helping our students to complete graduation, look at a career that they might want to take, or, further, going to a postsecondary institution.

The child and youth care...

I do appreciate the concern. When students do miss class to go out and seek other supports that they need to be successful in life, we would work with the education authorities to ensure that teachers who are in a situation where their students are leaving class, whether it's for a medical appointment, dentist appointment, or if it's for counselling, that the teacher makes every effort to ensure that the student gets the materials or information that they have missed for that day or a couple of days.

I am not sure if the Member knows, but, in previous governments, I have done a lot of work with youth in every position that I have had. We have a lot of smart youth out there and strong voices that represent their cultures, their languages, represent their people, and I am more than happy to reach out to the schools as well as some of the Indigenous governments that allow youth to participate in their daytoday business. We will be reaching out and finding ways to connect with our youth and getting their input in terms of looking at the possible development of a youth council for the Northwest...

I do know that we do have youth participate at the national level, also bring concerns forward at the territorial level. In a lot of our schools, they have school councils as well. I know there are some of our Aboriginal groups who have youth that sit on national and international councils that bring concerns forward to the national and international level from their respective regions, even the territory, itself. That is something that we'd be willing to take a look into.

As I said, it is something that is important. I have known some 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds who have run for seats in this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's great to see all the youth in the gallery here today. I do believe that we have some youth from the grade 6-7 Weledeh classes. Welcome to the Legislative Assembly. I hope you had a good tour this morning.

I also believe we have some exchange students from Quebec who are here. Welcome to the North and welcome to Yellowknife and the Legislative Assembly, as well as students from William McDonald. This is Education Week, as I have mentioned, Mr. Speaker, and I'd like to thank all the educators for all the work that you do. Mahsi cho.

As I mentioned, once this report comes out we'll see how some of our dollars have been spent and whether or not we've had organizations or communities that have accessed federal dollar spending. We do have unique ways of how we partner within our departments, but that is something we'll have to take a look at. I know, because there was such an influx of the $3 million on top of the $1.2, we want to make sure those funds were spent, that we did create employment, that we created jobs in the communities, developed projects in the communities, and I want to see how that report looks. Moving...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the work that the rural and remote community has been doing since it got together and started working with the Regular Members and Ministers of Cabinet. As well as the increase of the $3 million in the 2017-2018 operations budget, I can let the Member know, and I did make a statement earlier in the session that, from April 1, 2017, to December 31, 2017, we had created over 400 jobs in every region in the Northwest Territories. I have not got the updated stats from this year, from January 1st to present, but I am sure that it has increased as well in...