Jackson Lafferty

There is a program in place with the federal government and it’s to replace ASEP. Now the acronym is ASET. It’s a program that individual Aboriginal organizations can access funding for, for training. It’s a bit different from what the Mine Training Society has done for a number of years. We’ve argued that with the federal Minister Diane Finley, but they’ve already had their mind set on this ASET program. We’ll continue to discuss our initiative pan-territorially. It’s been very successful, Mr. Speaker. The Mine Training Society has been leading the way through industries when it comes to...

As much as it hurts, I have to take this as notice.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I need to follow up with the Member’s statement. I’ll definitely follow through with my department where things are at within the WSCC about the tribunal. I’ll definitely follow up.

I totally agree with the Member that we need to safeguard our teachers and professions in the school. I know there are some policies in place at the regional and community schools about zero tolerance on staff abuse. The Safe School Policy, I need to look into the status on that, if it’s been completed, if it is a Northwest Territories-wide initiative. I’ll get that information and the recent update and provide that to the Members.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We were fortunate enough for 2011-2012 for those individuals - the teachers coming to the North and also from the North - finding a suitable accommodation. It is a challenge. It’s a struggle at times for those teachers to find accommodations in the communities, especially isolated communities. This is an area that we’ve been working on in a coordinated approach with the Housing Corporation, my department, and also Health, because we have to deal with other professions as well. There is a review on the way, as Mr. McLeod alluded to, of the Shelter Policy review. This is an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

I would just like to say thank you to the Members on this motion. This initiative is already in the works with my Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We’re already proceeding with this. A proposal for the creation of the Aboriginal languages secretariat will be brought forward for consideration in 2012-2013 business planning session. We will continue our efforts to seek increased funding from the federal government through the negotiation of a multi-year Language Funding Agreement. I look forward to continuing to work with...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular area, the budget obviously had been cut in 2008 and for the one seat that we’re talking about, the $25,000 seat with the University of Saskatchewan, we do have currently an NWT student that’s studying at the University of Saskatchewan and the funding is not provided to the individual, but that individual will be completing academic year 2013-2014 and we’re very proud of that. There are students out there exploring those areas. So with that, I’d just like to highlight that this program was cut in 2008 as it stands. Mahsi.

Most definitely this will be one of the topics of discussion when I meet with the board chairs.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This is one of the areas that is of great interest to us, as well, since we’ve heard in the news the bullying has increased. We do currently have policies in place that deal with the local school boards, the regional school boards, but we talk about the legislation for the overall Northwest Territories. That is an area that we are exploring.

I wish to come back to the Members within six months or within a year to highlight what we found, and we are comparing with other jurisdictions as Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. We have an ongoing dialogue with them. We will provide that...

As the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, I gave a directive to the school boards, because we provide funding for culture-based programs and we noticed some of the money wasn’t being expended thoroughly into the culture-based programming. There’s been a directive given, so the school boards are fully aware that we need to do more in those areas and utilizing the elders, utilizing the community members as expertise. We will continue to push that forward with the school boards as well.