Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies. I thought it was in a section later, but in regards to High School Pathways, it is an initiative that we're moving forward with our education renewal. We have had consultations with the education authorities. My apologies to the Member for telling him it was on a different page. The High School Pathways, we're looking at five different streams, as mentioned. That won't be implemented in the school system until the 2019-2020 academic year. So that gives us a full year to do the consultations, meet with our partners, our stakeholders, our education authorities...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess one of the triggers that we have seen most recently was the Canada Child Benefit. That triggered us to review our income assistance, which also made us look at our own NWT Child Benefit. Those both made enhancements to the program, so, as I mentioned, our low- to modest-income families are getting more dollars. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a meeting coming up with the president of the Aurora College, and I will be bringing some of these concerns forward. I am not sure if the Member is asking for all the programs, a list of when they were reviewed and last reviewed. Maybe he can be a little bit clearer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Well, before the formal response, and I understand the Member's comments about voting on the page, the preliminary results that we are seeing are that it is not feasible at this time, with the shared services. We will get something to the Members, and that is something that we will be sharing with the education authorities. What we notice is that all of the education authorities do different things in terms of how they run programs, how they fund their schools, and it is hard to keep one standardized throughout the NWT. Initially, those were some of the early, ongoing results, but we will get...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a new initiative. It's better than what we have right now. I wouldn't say better, but it's going to help complement the work that's going on right now across the Northwest Territories. It adds resources into the regions. There would be travelling. It's a new initiative. We're going to have to monitor this, and right now I'm not looking at putting one into each region. We'll do three in the North and up out of Inuvik and three here out of Yellowknife who will travel into the communities and work with our CDOs and work with the other resources that we currently have...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it is important on this piece of legislation that we get good consultation on that discussion paper and make sure that all of our stakeholders and our partners have that input. We are expecting a draft bill to the Legislative Assembly by late 2018 or, if anything, early 2019. So we are going to have that consultation over the next several months, and then, hopefully, we will have a draft before the Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Because it is a bilateral agreement with the Government of Canada, we do have to respect our working relationships with them. Any input or influx of funding that we get towards early childhood development is great for us in the Northwest Territories; and I did mention and commit that, once we do get the agreement signed, that we would be willing to come and brief standing committee on the steps moving forward and the action plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, there are no changes to the rates. With our income assistance clients, it is on a case-by-case basis, and it is to cover off the most basic needs for anyone who is on income assistance. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think we are getting a little ahead of the game here. The foundational review, as I mentioned, is coming near to completion. There are going to be recommendations that come out of that foundational review. We are going to develop a management response and move on from there in terms of looking at those recommendations, but cannot make any commitments or decisions at this time until we see the results of that review. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are in the process of developing a response to those shared services and that exercise we did on the shared services, so we are just currently developing a response to that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.