Jackson Lafferty

There is ongoing discussion with the federal counterparts, with our colleagues out there, and we do stress our concerns as well. But at the end of the day, the decision is the federal decision, and again, we have to be prepared for the decision that will come down and if we need to make changes to our policy, then we definitely need to look at those that will impact the two-year span that we’re talking about from 65 to 67. Again, we will monitor the decision that is coming down from the federal government. Mahsi.

Again, we do contribute to the board of education. I don’t want to be in a position to dictate where the money should be going. It’s their decision, the local DEA/DEC. They need to decide where the best interest lies because they’re the experts and they need to allocate funding. It will be a last resort for our department to go into the community and say this is where the money should be spent: on busing. It’s at their discretion. We are more than willing to work with Beaufort-Delta on the funding allocation, the formal funding and so forth. I will be committing to meeting, because we are...

If there are changes, we will definitely come back to the standing committee and talk about potential impacts and how we can deal with that in due time. Mahsi.

This is a real recent decision that is going to be coming down and we haven’t really figured out the repercussions or the impacts in the Northwest Territories. We will be working on the potential impacts and we can share that information with the Members. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We are closely monitoring what the federal move is on the old age pension. That’s been a controversial issue at the national level. We, as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, do provide assistance to, as the Member indicated, income support clientele. If the move goes forward as we’ll probably see, we need to prepare our department. We need to prepare the GNWT on the repercussions of the decision that is going to be made. We will be closely monitoring what the decisions are going to be. Mahsi.

We do assist through our Department of Education, Culture and Employment those individuals who walk in the door. If there are questions, we assist with them in that respect. I will definitely provide that information that we can provide to the Member.

I don’t have the actual number of who all applied, but I do have the 35 who were approved. Mahsi.

I’m sure, as the Member indicated, he watches Northbeat, and I’m sure he reads the newspaper as well. It’s all over the newspaper as well. We also promote that on our website. We advertise across the Northwest Territories newspapers. We provide presentations to the general public and special interest groups. There have been promotional items being presented to the general public on the Nominee Program since 2009. We’re not into the second year. There has been some uptake in this program. We’ll continue to monitor it.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The Nominee Program was agreed upon in 2009 and then implemented from there. We are into a three-year program now. In 2010-2011 we’ve had just over 30 applicants, I do believe – just under 50 and we are entitled to 150 per year. So we are earmarking 2012 again for another 150 nominations from CIBC. So it’s been quiet in this area, but there are applications that are coming in, and 28 have been approved for the critical impact worker category and seven for the skilled workers category. So there are 35 nominee applications that have been approved and are in the system. We are...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Over time we amended our policy on the income support security system to reflect the costs of being in the Northwest Territories. There is a mortgage payment. It is covered up to three times in the lifetime of the clients. We do assess to some degree on the mortgage as well. Not only that but the client should not be building assets while accessing income support as well. There are subsidies in place. We have amended those subsidies in 2007 to reflect the cost for the Northwest Territories. We will continue to make those changes as necessary.