Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. That’s correct. It’s always been attached to the enrolment funding. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. There is a decrease in enrolment, as we all know, in the Northwest Territories. So there’s a decrease of 2.7 percent in enrolment for September 2008-2009. Mahsi.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the $400,000 that’s been identified would cover a variety of, I guess, sectors or a committee to identify what’s important in the communities. I wouldn’t call this meaningless money. There’s $400,000 going to the communities. We want to spend the $400,000, the majority of it, probably 90 or 95 percent of it, in the schools, in the community, into the organizations’ hands so they can deliver a breakfast program or other nutritious program. We can’t call it meaningless, Mr. Chair.

I think it’s important to identify that we are working with the NWT Foods First...

Individuals like that with a family, we provide subsidies for income security programming. There are a variety of programs that we can certainly offer to those individuals. So, Mr. Speaker, we do what we can through the income security area. As I stated, there are always amendments to our current policies that we have on hand, but so far it’s been up to date to meet the standards of community needs. Mahsi.

Mr. Chairman, yes. Throughout the career and employment development, we have added a new initiative, as the Members are aware. Smaller community summer employment supports, that certainly will go a long way in small, isolated communities for providing employment to the youth. We do have regional representatives and also at the community level that deal with career counselling. We provide funding to the schools as well, provide that to the community outreach workers and then career officers and so forth.

Mr. Chairman, we can provide more of the detailed breakdown of the actual amount of the main...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we increased the minimum wage just this past week and it is scheduled for April of this year; another one next year. Those are the areas that we are continuing to focus on right now. With respect to the other thresholds the Member is alluding to, we have increased the threshold in the seniors home fuel subsidy just recently. The policy is always changing, so those are things we need to consider. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I do believe my department has met with the Aurora College on what the Member is referring to. Of course, we need to discuss further on what other programs are out there. I know the Member is passionate about the non-renewable resource area and the program that he has suggested in the past. Those are the discussions that we continue to have with the college. The college will likely come back to our department and identify different programming, enhancing their programs, compared to what other jurisdictions are offering. So, yes, those are the ongoing discussions we...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what we’re dealing with here is barren land caribou. The question that we’re posing to the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories is: did the GNWT have the authority to issue the banning on the caribou. Mahsi.

This is an area that we can look at where the communities that we sponsor currently, the eight communities, how is the program being run or is it a successful program. Because we do a contribution agreement through those communities on an annual basis, so if we talk about an increase, then, of course, we have to find the funds to offset that cost, but we can look at that request. Mahsi.