Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With client service officers usually when there’s a demand for any advancement in their position or usually we have client service officers to get together. There is training or workshops that happen at times. Just recently we had a group of client service officers gather to provide training to them to deal with clientele professionally, not only that but the efficiency and proficiency and effectiveness of delivering a program. Those are some of the areas that we’ve covered. Whenever there’s training that is required, we provide that to client service officers.

With the project that’s going forward now, there are going to be various training aspects and that’s what we need to identify. I want to push this forward expeditiously with potential partners that are there in the Beaufort-Delta and, based on their needs, develop plans of action pertaining to training. That’s an area that I’m committing to with my department, working with the regional representatives, and also industry and Aboriginal organizations. We need to plan now.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. That is a great question. This is an area that we are preparing. I just met with the standing committee this morning, just preparing for whether it be the Deh Cho, Sahtu and Beaufort-Delta, there is so much activity that will be happening in that area. We need to plan now. I’ve instructed my department and also my senior staff that we need to develop, if there is a committee in place already, what are the training needs and the requirements at the community level and let’s focus on those are let’s have a meeting immediately. We’re forming a steering committee to deal with...

Yes, we do have, even with our client service officers throughout the Northwest Territories and even as far as the directors, we have the professionalism, we have dedicated, educated individuals in the system. At the same time, there is always room for improvement on the programming areas and we have to work with that as well. I’m glad the Member is raising that profile. That is part of the process as we discuss the action plan.

I’m sure that will be the outcome of part of our action plan we’re going to be delivering to the standing committee next month. We make do with what we have, the client service officers, throughout the Northwest Territories. Some have high caseloads, some low. It does fluctuate. We are monitoring that right now. We continue to, again, pertaining to training, conduct training in the regions and communities. At the same time, this is an area that we are seriously looking at as part of the nine recommendations that came down from the office of the Auditor General. We are taking it seriously as...

I agree that these types of training should be pushed forward in advance. I will be working with the Department of Transportation on this particular piece of work where we’ve done that in the past in other communities, whether it be a Class 1, Class 2 or Class 3, and even Class 5. There are certain individuals that want to take this training. I will commit to the Member that we’re going to put that forward, and then based on the communities’ needs, if that is the interest, then we’ll definitely fulfil that.

Those are the areas that we need to discuss with the group, and when I mention the group, that’s the community representatives, the industry representatives. They are the experts that will provide the community-based needs, the human resources. We do have community learning centres. We have the colleges. Colleges are part of the process, as well, and the Mine Training Society, if they happen to be part of the process. I think they should be part of the process, and other industries and organizations that are part of the group. We’re going to have a dynamic discussion identifying short-term...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I feel that I have to rise on a point of order. I have waited until today to raise the point of order because I wanted to review the Hansard with respect to comments made in the House yesterday by Mr. Bromley.

Yesterday, in his reply to opening address, Mr. Bromley quoted a poem from an income security client and that quote referred, by name, to an income security worker and criticized the performance of that person in the House. These references can be found on page 30 of the March 12, 2013, unedited Hansard, and I quote: “’Hi, is … available?’ I calmly say. “No, sorry, she...

I’d just like to thank the Member for asking that particular question. We want to support our students here in the Northwest Territories to stay in the territory at the Aurora College campus. We have three campuses and we need to support those students. With the information the Member is asking for, I don’t have the specific history of it, but I can provide that information.

Part of my ongoing discussion with the president and chair is to raise the profile with them. If there hasn’t been any programming in that area, why not, and how can we move forward on this? I assure the Member that I will...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With respect to subsidizing students in the Northwest Territories, we do have one of the attractive benefits packages compared to other jurisdictions. However, we have done our research, as well, on what other jurisdictions offer with respect to disabilities area. We have come out with various options within our department. We also heard, through the review of SFA, how we should be addressing or increasing our funding towards disability. We have done that through this budget planning process, where disability grant amounts from $8,000 to $10,000 per academic year. That’s...