Alfred Moses

As a government, we have a responsibility to ensure that all residents, all communities, in the Northwest Territories have an opportunity to access our programs, our services. Because of population sizes, we should not be discriminating or leaving people out. That program, back in the previous years, was not fully utilized. It was about $1.24 million. We are trying to find ways, innovative and unique ways, to ensure that our communities, our partners in our smallest communities, have that opportunity to have job creation. However, as the government, I do not think that any community...

This is a consensus government. We all have input into this in working together. If the committee has concerns, we can sit down and we can share some of these e-mails back and forth. If the Members of committee are concerned, we can also table some of our back-and-forth discussions just to make sure that the public understands the process of how we have been going about this foundational review and the timelines that we are trying to make and set. As I mentioned, this is consensus government. We all have a role to play in the decisions that are made in this House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned, we are going to get this foundational review. We set a timeline for March 31, 2018, and from that review, we are going to create a departmental response. We are going to share it with committee, we are going to share it with all Members of this Legislative Assembly, and as I mentioned, we are going to be working on a strategic plan going forward for the next 10, 20 years.

Nationally there are standard performance measures such as number of enrolments, graduations, and student satisfaction that can be used for existing and future programs. I recognize that a new accountability framework will need to be informed by the foundational review, and that's where we are heading moving forward. In the interim, the department will continue to work with the college to advance this work, but also work with the college on how do we best serve our students in the Northwest Territories who decide to get educated here in the North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Aurora College and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment continue to work together on a regular basis to review programs that are offered at three of our campuses, as well as our community learning centres, and we continually work to support and improve programs and student outcomes throughout those three campuses as well as our community learning centres. I'm going to continue to do that work and work together to make sure that we have the best interests of our students and our education in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome and recognize all the students in the nursing program, as well as the social work program; in particular, Amber-Joy Gruben, who is from Inuvik and is taking the nursing program. Welcome, and I hope you guys had a good visit to the Legislative Assembly and had a good tour. Thank you, Mahsi.

When the new dollars came out, we made some changes within the program, itself, so that we can help all communities. As Members know, the economy has taken a downturn. In some of our regional centres, we have fewer jobs, fewer opportunities, and we want to help every community to be able to create some kind of economy, as well as create jobs in some of these communities. That is our goal. That is our focus. We are going to continue to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned last week, the new influx of dollars into the Small Community Employment Support Program came into effect April 1st. We are about six months into this fiscal year, and we are still looking at how we can support our communities, support our partners so that we can utilize this program. I think it is a little too early on in this fiscal year to have any of that information, but I will make sure that our departments continue to work with our partners, our communities, to make sure that these dollars are being utilized to their full capacity.

As I mentioned earlier, as a government and as a department, we do support our students, whether they decided to get their education here in the Northwest Territories or outside the Northwest Territories. We want to make sure that all our students who are taking post-secondary education have that opportunity to succeed, and we are going to continue and commit to making sure that our students have that opportunity.

As we were discussing with our contractors, we are going to be working very closely with them. They will be working very closely with the college to ensure that, when the review is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, there have been some delays in the correspondence back and forth, but we take all of committee's recommendations and suggestions seriously, and we do want to work with all Members in this Legislative Assembly. It is not us versus them. We should all be working together in the best interests of our residents, in the best interests of our students, and of the people that put us in this House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.