Jackson Lafferty

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...

I’m glad the Member asked that question. That is a very important milestone that we have encountered. Working closely with the federal government we’ve identified funds to offset the costs of preserving and revitalizing our Aboriginal languages, even all official languages. We’ll continue to work towards that. Within our own department we have just over $14 million when you compile all the funding that we distribute throughout the Northwest Territories. It does enhance our stand with respect to Aboriginal language, and revitalizing and preserving it.

This is an area we continue to work on with...

Mahsi. We do take those case by case and quite seriously. If there are, whether it be missing documentation and so forth, we need to follow through with that. My client service officers through our department work closely with the clientele. There are some challenges that we’re faced with.

As you know, income support is a very challenging file. Every day our client service officers are challenged. I’d just like to encourage them to continue working with the clientele even though they may be frustrated. At the same time, we have to provide those supports to the clientele and we provide those...

Mahsi. There is development of an audit manual for the program auditor. That’s part of the process that we’re going to be developing over time and, again, this will be part of the process. There will be short-term, mid-term and long-term goals and objectives to follow through with the recommendations, and we are taking those recommendations quite seriously and we will be implementing them. Thank you.

We do recognize that some of the languages are on the verge of being lost. We are reaching out to the regional groups such as the Gwich’in. The Gwich’in Language Centre, the Gwich’in Language Board, there are various boards involved, promoting even more. We’ve identified funding, as I’ve indicated earlier. We want those individuals to be involved. Where should the funding be invested, which areas? Which areas are now working that we funded over the years? Where can we reinvest into those language revitalization or preservation? There are groups at the regional level that we work closely with...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When it comes to the Aboriginal languages, official languages, there are various roles whether it be the parents, the grandparents, the teachers, the community members, the leaders. So there are various roles and within my department, as you know, there are various initiatives, whether it be the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, the Language Strategy, and there is another symposium that’s coming up next week. We want to identify the second phase of an Aboriginal Languages Secretariat.

As you know, through the budget we discussed the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat...

Mahsi. As I stated, this is part of the whole complex issue that we’re dealing with. The recommendations that are brought to our attention, we will cover those areas and we will be developing an action plan to deal with each and every recommendation that is brought forward. Again, we’re taking those recommendations quite seriously. Those are the complex issues that came to our attention.

Again, the files that we deal with are very generic and they’re very complex across the Northwest Territories. I appreciate that the Auditor General came down, provided guidance and provided direction for us to...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. First of all I’d just like to thank the office of the Auditor General for doing the overall review of the income security. As you know, income security, the framework itself is quite large. It’s a very complex file. At the same time, the nine recommendations that came to our attention as some of the areas where we knew would need some improvement. So we are working towards that.

As I stated before, we are developing an action plan to deal with all of the recommendations brought forward, and one of them is the tool that the Member is referring to. We’re going to be compiling...