Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government believes that this policy could be brought into place. So the affirmative action policy fairly quickly and it could happen during the life of this Assembly, depending on how our discussions go with Members and other stakeholders. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government has completed quite a bit of work on this and has some ideas for how to move forward with employment equity. We are at the point now where we are ready to discuss it with Members of the Legislative Assembly and the standing committees and then see if there is a willingness to move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intention, now that we have the curriculum and as soon as we can find the money or identify the funding to offer this program, is to offer the program in various locations on a rotating basis. So it isn’t going to be offered every year in every community. We don’t think that there would be enough uptake to be able to do that. We want to make sure we have the critical mass of students and instructors. We are only planning to offer it in one community for two years and then move it around the North in that way to make sure that everybody has access to it. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is an area that is extremely important to our department. As the Member pointed out in his statement, we have brought in a directive requiring schools to use the aboriginal language and culture funding for that purpose. We know that some schools are having trouble finding enough qualified instructors, so we have expanded the program. The program design work has been done so that the curriculum now goes for two full years. I would allow it to be a certificate program. It could be brought in. So we are ready to move to that. But, Mr. Speaker, at this point...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure that you can say that the budget is big enough if it’s been planned already without that space there. The community has been involved intimately in the plans for the school. The space has been set aside for it, but there is a requirement for the community to get involved. It’s worth pointing out that the community itself has a number of options right now. The municipality will have access to gas tax funds, MRIF funds, and improved capital funding that my colleague, the Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, spoke about just last week...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d be happy to work with Members to identify ways in which we can improve our support. As I said earlier, I have already got the plans for an improved subsidy. I would dearly love to be able to offer improved capital grants to operators, but that’s going to take more money that this government doesn’t have. We need to find ways to improve our income as a government in order to be able to get those subsidies to people in the North. I’m quite prepared to work with Members and to see if we can find ways to achieve betterment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d certainly enjoy an opportunity to look at changing our subsidy program so that parents could see more support through this government as well. However, we need to identify more revenues. As Members around this table know, we are challenged to meet our current obligations and are running into what the Minister of Finance has called a debt wall not too far off in the future if we don’t get more money from Ottawa. So it is certainly something we have plans for, but to be able to deliver that kind of program, we need to have more revenues. This government needs to have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, the definitions now, the P1, P2, and P3 would disappear, but the employment equity program would involve the identification and removal of systemic barriers as well as the identification of groups that might be underrepresented and then specific targeted actions to work to bring the representation in various parts of government up to the standards that it should be. So it is in many ways similar. Employment equity is similar to affirmative action, but it is a more active process of identifying where the problems lie and then trying to find ways, whether it is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As is the tradition with how we do business in this House, we have offered to brief the committee. We have shared the information with the committee. We are prepared to have a discussion with members of the standing committee. That would be the first step before any document would be shared outside. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t make a commitment on next year’s budget until we have that budget in the House. I hope that we are going to be able to implement the program next year. We will do all that we can to ensure that we can see it happen. Thank you.