Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, currently we have the school in Trout Lake. We have students learning in Trout Lake; 20 students that are registered in school. We do have a facility. It may not be a fancy facility, but this is an area that we are closely monitoring. At the same time, this is an area that I’ve been pushing my department, especially for small schools, how we can expedite this process.

When it comes to capital infrastructure, every year we go through that. We push through various schools to be included in the capital planning process. Unfortunately, there are other pressing needs, other pressing...

Mr. Speaker, the information I have is they received $125,000, but I will double check with my department. The funds should be flowing to the organization to start implementing their establishment. I can assure the Member that I will follow through with this and get back to the Member. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

That’s correct. Dr. Andre Corriveau is the lead when it comes to dealing with the experts, the stakeholders. He also led the team, the group, during the engagement with the community, general public. It is part of the framework that has been over a decade. There haven’t been any changes. So that is before us and that is what I was referring to. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] Mr. Speaker, I would like to make an announcement. At seven o’clock there will be an award given to four people here, and they are going to be receiving a Jubilee Award and it’s one of the top honours to receive.

The first one is Mr. Wah-Shee. He has worked for the GNWT. He was also an MLA and a Minister. He is now working with the Tlicho Government and has done lots of work for the Tlicho Government. He also started the Indian Brotherhood in the past, and he has worked on many things in the North. I want to make it known that he is one of the persons that...

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that, of course, my department is working closely with Ndilo and also Tulita, and dealing with the family resource centres. With Ndilo over the past several months, they have been working on establishing a child and family resource centre and will be getting implementation. We have been diligently working with them. My understanding, also, is that $125,000 funding has been allocated last fall. Those are just some of the initiatives that have been worked on, but I can provide the latest update to the Member from my department. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The recommendations and the report should be available within the next few months. I was hoping to deliver that by the end of March or early April. That’s the target, in a draft format. Then in the May-June session, I would like to table the document. That is the target date.

I’m working closely with the Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu, on this particular piece of work. It’s a very important document that’s before us and we had a lot of input from the general public of the Northwest Territories, the stakeholders, the elders, the parents. It is a document...

Mahsi. What I can commit to in this House is that I will be working with the standing committee to identify, as we move forward on the business planning process, which areas we need to highlight as a priority for this government. Also for the Regular Members, I want to share their perspective, because we have 18 recommendations. Unfortunately, we can’t implement them all next year or the following year, but we can at least capture two or three that we can move forward on. So I’m committed to doing that. I’ll be working closely with standing committee on a move forward basis. Mahsi.

Mahsi. Again, that information will be before this House as a public document, and as we move forward, those are recommendations to me, as the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, on Student Financial Assistance. So in order to start implementing those, we need to find the funds, and I need to work with the standing committee to find those funds and which are the priority areas. So I am committing to working with the Members across the floor to highlight and identify which of the recommendations we should be going after first, second or third and so forth over a short...

That is correct; we are going to avoid late payments. Those late payments in the past, again, it all depends on the case-by-case basis. It could be missing documents. It is a shared responsibility between clients and our department, the client service officers. The information I gather and also the training that is going to be happening at the end of the month is specifically to deal with the backlog, the satisfaction survey that has been conducted in the past, how client service officers deal with those clientele in a professional and positive manner. The process itself from issuing of the...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Member that we need to have the staff up to speed on all the processing and issuing of the cheques on time. That is one of our priorities. This has been brought to my attention when Member Bisaro first asked those questions. I then followed up with my department. There have been some challenges, but at the same time, I have instructed my department that we need to make this a priority. If we have a shortage of staff, whether it be on leave, we need to have a dedicated individual in the system who can follow up on all requests.

I did commit to this House...