Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to take the opportunity to recognize one of the constituents from my riding in Inuvik Boot Lake, Ms. Judy McLeod. Welcome to the House. It is always great to have you here. Also, a former colleague in the 17th Legislative Assembly who has offered great wisdom, experience, and guidance, Ms. Wendy Bisaro. Great to see you again, and welcome to the House. As well as Lillian Elias, who is translating this week as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following three documents entitled "Return to Written Question 23-18(2): School Funding Framework," "Follow-Up Letter for Oral Question 804-18(2): Territorial Immigration Policies and Programs," and Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 816-18(2): Healthy Relations Training for Educators."

As we get updates from the contractor and the work that they are doing, I will just ask Members to be patient and wait until we get those results, and we will continue to try and update Members on the progress that is being made.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are at a point right now where it is a very opportune time for the government to make sure that we do this right and that we do get a product and get the results and hear from our partners across the Northwest Territories, and get that information we need so that we can make those evidence-based decisions, and wait for those results. Right now, that contract was awarded. I think Members of this House should be patient and ensure that we do this right, and make sure that we get a really good product at the end of the day, and let our contractors do their job and make...

I think the dollar back in the seventies was a lot different from the dollar of today, and also the fact that we have made increases as well, such as the Small Community Employment Support Program. That is one where we were trying to address some of these areas to help families, to help people get working, become part of the workforce. We continue to make changes to policies so that more families get more money in their pockets at the end of the day as well. We are still continuing to work to address those issues through strategies, initiatives, the Anti-Poverty Strategy, for one, and the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can assure Members of this House that our department is closely monitoring the three-year Ontario pilot project that the Member talked about in his opening statement. We are looking at the implementation, and we do look forward to seeing those results. In the meantime, we have done initiatives. We have created action plans. Just recently this past year we made changes to the Canada Child Benefit, as well as the NWT Child Benefit, to try to give every family in the Northwest Territories the opportunity to be part of their communities, the economy, as well as to meet...

Yes, previous to the decisions that I made we did meet with the board on a regular basis, and with the discussions in the May/June sitting we thought it was best to go in the direction in which we are removing it now with the foundational review that is going to look at everything. Prior to that, we did have those meetings with the board on a regular basis.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and with the removal of the board, it brought a focus on the review itself. We are going to be looking at the operations of the Aurora College, as well as the governance of Aurora College, and that is where we are focusing with this foundational review. When we get the results at the end of the review, we will be in a position where we can make the decisions moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We do want to get information from our partners, or non-government organizations, people who have a vested interest into getting our students into the NWT work force, and making sure that NWT students do succeed and have every opportunity through program services that we do provide, whether it is in the school system or the post-secondary institutions. We're going to make sure that we look at some of the information that we have. Now, this is the first time that the NWT ever had specific labour market information. We are going to use that to make sure that we give our students every...

I will have to get that information from the department, and then I will get it back to the Member.