Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I do remember the Member raising that issue, and we will do it for next year. I’m kind of surprised that it was still here too. We’ll make that work.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. Obviously, there has to be a financial accountability. On an annual basis we receive financial statements from them. I believe it’s audited financial statements from them on an annual basis. That clarifies where expenditures happen and in what areas and so forth, staff, administration, the schools, student programming, all of that. That’s how they base it on annual expenditures, through audited financial statements.

This is an area that we obviously don’t have the information detail before us. We’re leaning towards the capital planning. We are again working close with the college, the Board of Governors, to identify the needs, the needs assessment. We will provide that information to the Members once we engage the college. We will provide that information in due time. Unless my director has some detailed information which I may not have in front of me, I will allow Mr. Devitt.

Mr. Chair, what I’m looking at is cultural and heritage. I believe that is the information that I have. Maybe I will get my director to maybe elaborate a bit more.

That $2.041 million is strictly geared towards the PYs in the regions. That’s an area we will continue to monitor through our department. With the training, that is additional funding that we provide through our Education, Culture and Employment department on to the Aboriginal groups or agencies or those firms that are willing to work with us to initiate a training program, such as HEO or underground training, such as the Mine Training Society. We are actively partners in those areas and we have the funding to provide that. The Mine Training Society has the funding to provide that as well. We...

When we talk about training in the communities, there are certain parties involved, whether it be ENR or ITI. There are interdepartmental committees working closely with the regional groups. There is a steering committee that is established to identify those needs, whether it be the biomass, and areas of training that are required by the Deh Cho region. Definitely, those are areas that we need to identify as part of whether it be a month, two months, however the length of training program that’s required, and then identify those individuals that are interested. It is the grassroots people that...

Mahsi. There is a certification diploma in Aboriginal Language Instruction and Coordinator Program. We’ve had real success in the Beaufort-Delta. Just last year we had, I can’t remember exactly the numbers, but I think up to 12, I believe. I could be wrong. But we had a good number of graduates, and we’ll want to utilize them in various fields as we possibly can or even encourage them to pursue even higher education.

I don’t have the actual number for this fiscal year. The graduates are coming through the system. So we can provide that kind of detailed information once we have that from the...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This is an area we’ve been exploring for quite some time now with the Ndilo K’alemi Dene School, the DEA and so forth. So the Member is asking if it’s going to be part of this year’s budget. My staff is telling me yes.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. We’ll share what information we can possibly share. We need to engage the college as well. Some of the information may not be satisfied for us to share with the public, but we’ll have to engage them. There is a lot of information being shared between the two departments. With that we can go back to the standing committee and share some information that could be made available.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The $1.25 million or $132,000 that the Member is referring to, we had to be creative and innovative when we had to go through the budget cycle last time so we can find the money from within. So that’s where it came from. I just outlined the $1.25 million where the funding will be allocated. There are five different key areas that I have laid out and I can provide that copy to the Members. Mahsi.