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...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House for a portion of today’s proceedings to attend meetings with the Prime Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled Aurora College Annual Report 2011-2012. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, the Education Renewal and Innovation Initiative is examining a wide range of issues facing education in the NWT and developing a comprehensive plan to address these. The development of this plan and many aspects of the plan itself will involve participation of other GNWT departments. I am happy to report that a wide range of GNWT departments have dedicated staff to participating in this process. The plan itself is scheduled to be completed by this late fall/winter.

The renewal initiative is currently in the research and engagement phases. The project charter, describing the work...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] Today I’d like to talk about the Pages that are here to help us. We have two, Amber Beaverho. That is one of the Pages from Gameti; and another one, Krischan Smith. They are both from Whati community. And Alfred Beaverho, who is their supervisor. I would like to say thank you to those Pages and all the other Pages that have been here helping us through our session at this time. Thank you.

Most definitely. We need to work with all Members on this particular work, because it does impact across the Northwest Territories, the 33 communities, the DEAs, the NWTTA. If there is a push back, then I need to work with the Members.

With my department, I’ve just got a note that they’ve been in touch with the superintendent to try and find the background of the situation itself, so we are trying to find a remedy towards this particular area. As you know, we want every athlete to be successful, so that’s an area that we need to tackle. This is a GNWT policy and NWT Collective Agreement policy as well. There are several areas that we need to deal with and develop guidelines towards that. Again, I need to work with HR and the DEA. They’re getting a clear message now. My department has already been in touch with the DEA, the...

Yes, we can. This is an area that we’re very closely monitoring and there is a huge potential opportunity here. We have to find out the needs of the community. How much manpower is there in the Sahtu region? Who is trainable, employable? What are the training needs in the community? Industries have to be involved as well. We have to get the industries at the table and start discussing this immediately. I agree with the Member, we’re going to fast-track this and have a meeting within hopefully the next couple of weeks.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I agree that there should be formal meetings, potentially monthly or quarterly. There are all these different activities happening in the Sahtu region. More specifically, through training, we do have a steering committee of the regional representatives involving different parties as part of their discussion and planning stages. What are the communities’ needs? By all means my department will be sharing that with the Sahtu regional representatives, and they should be having more council meetings preparing for the huge activity that will be happening in the region.

I don’t recall encountering this kind of incident in the past. There might have been a couple before. The time frame, I need to seriously look at this. As I’ve stated, this is the first event, but I will be working with the Department of Human Resources, and also the NWTTA and within GNWT policy itself, and working with the DEA. We need to involve them, the superintendent. We’ll try and expedite this process as best as we can. Again, there are parties involved, so we need to engage with the parties. If the changes are going to be made, they need to be involved as well.