Alfred Moses

As I mentioned, I can't make any commitments until we see the review of these results with the pilot project going on in Ontario. I did look over the program, though, but some of the things that they're doing are things that we do right across the departments with Health and Social Services, with Justice, within my department. One of the programs that we also have, that is similar to what they're doing in Ontario, is with our productive choices program that we have with our income assistance clients. I can't commit to any kind of guaranteed income pilot until we see what's happening in Ontario...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a great honour to have some of our students from Aurora College joining us today and taking in proceedings. I believe every year students from the social work program come and learn about how the Legislative Assembly works. I believe they got a great tour this morning, so I would just like to welcome the students and the instructor from the Aurora College social work program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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...

Every education authority works with their schools to develop their school-year plan. As such, with any supports that are needed, the administration will work on looking at providing those supports. I know there are schools that actually have tutors that go in after school hours. As well, I know there are a couple of schools here, in Yellowknife, that have evening classes that allow students that might have missed the morning or might have missed the day to come into school in the evening and catch up on their school work. There are definitely innovative options out there to help students...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, in my Minister's statement, I did mention the child and youth care counsellors in the schools. We will be piloting that initiative out with the Department of Health and Social Services. We are expecting these child and youth care counsellors to be in the schools but also to be offering services to residents in the communities throughout the whole year.

In terms of the Member asking questions about whether they will be in the school or do they have to be out, we also want to make sure that we do protect privacy and make sure that the students have the confidence that...

I do believe it is very important that our next-generation youth who are coming up and going to be our leaders in the future do have that input and also bring some of the concerns forward.

I know that a couple of governments back, it might have been the 15th Assembly, they did have a youth symposium that brought youth from right across the Northwest Territories. That brought some recommendations to the government, and the government did act on those recommendations. I do believe that is important. Once we have those discussions, I will be bringing that information back to Members.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it's a responsibility for all forms of government, whether it's the GNWT or even our Indigenous governments that we partner with, to ensure that the youth have a voice. I am a strong supporter of this.

In fact, in our last government, the Member and Members would be glad to hear that, when we were developing our Safe and Caring School legislation in the Northwest Territories, we did engage with youth across the Northwest Territories. We had facetoface meetings with them in their schools and in their classrooms and got feedback on that legislation. It was great to...

Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has a responsibility to make sure that high school students in the Northwest Territories have access to an equitable, high-quality education that prepares them to be contributing members to our communities. We owe it to our young people to provide an environment that supports wellness, inspires a sense of identity, and builds on their strengths, because we know it means a greater chance for success both in academics and in life.

Mr. Speaker, Members are aware of some of our work to date to implement education renewal and, in particular...

As I have mentioned to Members, as we are going through our main estimates, we also have the labour market development agreements that we do have with the Government of Canada. There are funds in that agreement that we do have with the federal government that will also help with employment, so there are some dollars that we are accessing on a bilateral basis, as well, and we are just looking at hopefully signing that agreement soon. We'll get all that information to the Member and to Members as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.