Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Chairman, we gather as many stats as we possibly can to develop case arguments with the federal government, because they are our partners as well. We just signed off a Labour Market Agreement just recently that deals with the youth, with those individuals that are ineligible for EI and training aspect and those individuals that do fall through the cracks. It is a training program in dollars that we have a joint force with the federal government. It is approximately $1.4 million on an annual basis for up to 2014. That is just an area that will certainly benefit the communities.

With the...

Yes, we do have a program available to community members, even on the website as well, even at the community level through regional representatives. With those, Mr. Speaker, they are available even to the Members. When there are changes in the programming or policies, then we do update the Members. So, with that, Mr. Speaker, the changes to the thresholds we talked about in the past, and as we go forward, we realize the high cost of living in the Northwest Territories, so we have to keep those in mind as well. We just increased the minimum wage. I think it was a good step in the right...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the answer is yes, we are expanding our Trades Apprenticeship Program. We’ve invested several hundred thousand. Let’s say $200,000 for the additional support for our apprenticeships and through our Labour Market we’ve identified another $400,000 in that area. Throughout the department we do have approximately a million in that figure that supports the apprenticeship and the trades sector.

The new funding that’s been identified is focusing on the women and aboriginal people in the communities for the Northwest Territories; so strictly focusing in that area. Also, we...

Mr. Speaker, this is a generic question to the Supreme Court. We’re asking if the GNWT has the authority. We want to clarify that, because there are a lot of questions from the organizations throughout the Northwest Territories, if the GNWT has the authority to ban caribou hunting. So that’s the question that we’re throwing out there. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this particular area, of course, we use the guidelines of the Arts Strategy that was developed a few years back and working close with the NWT Arts Council as well. They usually bring forward, let’s say, a request or a proposal and it does fluctuate as well. As you see here, there’s been some increase to the arts funding due to the request that has been made. So, Mr. Chair, those are the areas that we continue to make changes as needed in the communities. So what the Member is asking for is an area that I think we continue to make progress. Mahsi.

We consider as much context as we possibly can, once the individuals provide that information. Sometimes we have to request the information when they are not provided immediately, but we do what we can to get the information out of them. People do change, so we need to work with those individuals and, through the development stages, provide training for them to have productive choices in life as well.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. Currently we have eight different projects on the go, I believe it is eight different communities as well. We can provide that information. Mahsi.

We do have counsellors at the corrections area as well. Also just working with those individual clients, the inmates, upon their release, rehabilitation development stages. We do have a team that refers them to the outside link. Once they leave the facility, we just don’t ignore them; we have contact with the community they’re from to see how they’re doing and if they’ve moved on with their lives. Not only that, we try to set up as much arrangement as we can with the client services department as well.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This particular area, of course there’s always been a request for additional funds to deal with the special needs in the schools, but we do provide funding to education councils. This is an area that we’ve been looking at how we can improve in those areas. So, Mr. Chair, yes, it has been brought up in past chairs’ meetings along with other concerns for other opportunities that they’ve given us, and this I’m sure will be another topic of discussion when we meet with the chairs again in April. So it’s one of those ongoing discussions that we have in order to improve our...

Mr. Speaker, this Assembly is well aware of the damaging effects of drugs on our communities. Drug dealers prey on the most vulnerable among us. They target young people who think bad things will never happen to them. They go after people with mental illnesses who are struggling just to get through a day. They knowingly sell drugs that are laced with other drugs to people who already have addictions. They do this on purpose, so they have more people to sell to. And if this weren’t troubling enough, we know more deadly drugs such as crystal meth is already here.

The substance abuse problem is...