Jackson Lafferty

We’re talking about the whole Northwest Territories, it’s not just one region. Especially further up north, it’s got its challenges as well. The funding that we provide to the education authorities, we need to work with that. We continue to work closely with the school boards because of our IT services, as well, and have the educational link to the Internet. We are exploring different avenues, as well, Mr. Chair, about our whole fibre optic and Web band and broadband connectivity. So this will be part of the discussion that we could have with other departments as well. Even at the federal...

Yes, we are doing an overall review of the ALBE Program right now and we want to have some final word on what the linkage could be. We are also working closely with Aurora College. I have met with the board, I have met with the president and identified the concerns that the Member has raised and also other Members, that we need to do more than just ALBE Program in a community and to strengthen the ALBE Program that we have. I have seen some changes just since last year. I have been through small communities, community learning centres, every time I have opportunity to visit a community. I like...

That’s correct, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This alternative school programming, as we stated in the past, has been successful in various areas. We needed to look at the overall funding, the number of students that were attending in various schools and the funding that they were receiving, and at the end of the day, I guess, the end product, how many students are successfully completing the program. Based on the evaluation that’s been done, we decided that they would continue getting funding and the funding would be based on the alternative programming that would be offered and also the funding to offset the costs of...

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. If individuals are living there, they are considered as part of the household income. If they are temporarily there for short periods, then they will have to base it on a case-by-case basis. We’ll reassess the elder that the Member’s referring to and we need to get, we just have to follow the paper trail, the policies that we have in place, because once we open that up there will be a lot of people that will be using it as the drifters and, of course, some people are making good money, as well, and we don’t want them to take advantage of the elders as well. But this is an...

We can provide that up-to-date information of our correspondence with the various parties. Mahsi.

This is an area that we can look at. We can reach out to the communities. It’s on the website but we can contact the communities and regions so that they’ll be aware of it. I just got a note that it’s been accessed 13 times over the last decade. That’s related to the previous question the Member was asking.

Mr. Chair, the annual O and M contribution to the education authorities is, of course, we provide funding and then they use it at their discretion where their priorities lie. If it’s laptops or computers, then it will be at their discretion to utilize that funding. This laptop we’ve initiated as an initiative under the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and it was a one-time deal. We just wanted to highlight some of the key aspects that came out of the discussion and we’ve initiated that discussion and then we pursued it. If it’s the wish of the DEA or DEC to highlight or set priorities...

Again the framework that we are working on would consist of industries, Aboriginal governments, and it could also include the departments as well. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The exact number we have is 10.75 public housing rental subsidy positions being transferred back to the Housing Corporation. Mahsi.