Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, that could be part of the key component of discussions that we can have on a going forward basis. I can certainly commit to consider that as part of the discussions that we could have. Like I said, we just did a review and another review could be undertaken down the road, but I can’t commit today when that is going to happen. But I will take that into consideration and work with the Members on that. Mahsi.

That is one area that we continue to focus on with our department. The client service officers take various training to deal with the subsidies, the program delivery, the client face-to-face interaction, public relations. That area can certainly be part of the training package that we continue to provide our services to client service officers as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I definitely will commit to the Member to provide the information. As we move forward, we’re seeing some progress already that I will certainly share with the Members and we’re starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve dealt with the enrolment issue and now we’re seeing progress. So we’ll certainly share more as they become available.

Mahsi. The process itself is working closely with the school boards, the school board council and the district level as well, because we provide funding to the organization to provide the operation and maintenance of the school and to deal with the students. Enrolment issues are becoming an issue, but at the same time we have provided funding just in the last several months, now we’re seeing some results, but it’s going to take some time, but we are progressing on the enrolment issue.

So, Mr. Speaker, that’s great news. Even though it’s just a short period since September, we are seeing...

I think the importance is the service delivery, that we do provide subsidies to all Northwest Territories, whether it be one-stop, two-stop, three-stop shop. It’s a core service delivery that we deliver to the communities. So whether the Member is talking about all these shops, we do have a GNWT shop that we have to provide subsidies to the Northwest Territories on core delivery. Mahsi.

When we first hired the consultants to do a thorough review of the program that we delivered since the transfer of the program in 2006 we just wanted to capture what we’ve done to date and where we can go from here, what worked, what didn’t work, the causes of it. That is the review that has been undertaken. The report is finalized. The actual cost itself I will need to get back to the Member or Members on that. We’re still working out the logistics of it and there is an error in the report itself. So we’ve gone back to the consultant to provide more detailed information in that respect.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

With the recent tragedy in Haiti, the country that is in great need of help and assistance, to start developing their country over again, a small community in the Northwest Territories has the intention to help. The community of Behchoko, under the spearhead of Michael Botermans and the youth, came up with an idea of how to fully utilize a penny to start developing the country of Haiti over again.

The community initiated a penny drive where kids, community members, elders, leaders, and everyone picked pennies up from the ground, dug into...

We did make some changes to our program back in 2007. We did a review of our programming. We have made some drastic changes from increasing benefits to Northwest Territories. Also, just adding $5.1 million into the program itself. Those are substantial changes. We continue to work with the unearned and earned income. We do provide various training programs as well for those individuals that would like to get off income support, a Productive Choices program, but we continue to create these programs so those individuals can work with us. Mr. Speaker, we will continue to provide that valuable...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have people in the regions that deal with clientele. Yes, we deal with a computer system, but that’s just one piece of it. We continue to train our staff that they can have PR training into the communities, public relations. I think that’s the key. We have client service officers in most of the communities. For those without client service officers, we have dedicated individuals who go to the communities to deal with clientele. So there has been constant training that’s happening within our department. We will continue to provide those services, Mr...

The overall plan will be in these coming months. What I’ve highlighted is we’re currently working closely with the school boards themselves, the literacy councils in the communities. Also just dealing with the enrolment issue. The Member is right; that is one of the top priorities within our Education department. If a student misses one day a week, it adds up to almost a year by the time they reach grade 10. A year of schooling is a lot. So those are the topics of discussion that we’re having with the experts around the table, the committee members. They’re the ones that are the experts at the...