Jackson Lafferty

Give us a second, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I have to my left, Mr. Dan Daniels, deputy minister; and, Paul Devitt, director of strategic business services. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair…(inaudible)…it’s been of great interest to us. When we start talking about the food basket and other areas of nutritious food delivery into the communities, to the schools, and this $400,000 was earmarked so we can identify what’s needed in the communities. As I stated earlier, Mr. Chair, the $400,000, the majority of it will be going to the community, it will be going to the organization so they can distribute it to the students that are without food or the breakfast program in the morning, because we did listen to the Assembly Members about no more studies. So we’re saying...

I will continue to work with my colleague, the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, because we are transferring the program and we want to have a smooth transition along the way. So the subsidy programs are part of the process as well. We’ll do what we can to make that effective. Mahsi.

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.