Jackson Lafferty

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...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for asking that question. I think it’s important to highlight that initiative that we’ve undertaken, the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. We were given indication last year sometime that enrolment was down and there were challenges with identifying students, where they’re at with their grades and so forth. So, Mr. Speaker, that area has been identified and we have a committee that’s in place that had several meetings already and they’ve made recommendations to our department.

On providing additional funding to the school boards...

There were no problems. There were challenges that were before us. We worked with those challenges. We continued to improve the program where we met some challenges and we continued to improve in those areas. Right now we’re talking about transferring. I think we’re at that stage where we will be providing more information to the standing committee on a going forward basis on the detailed information. But we faced some challenges. We resolved those challenges, and we continue to improve our program. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Just for the record, it’s not 14 positions that were transferred. When the transfer occurred in 2006 it was $1.3 million, not $1.5 million. That consisted within that of 10.75 PYs, not 14 positions. I just want to make that clear. But this is still in the planning stages. We just announced within the budget announcement that these programs would be transferred back to the Housing Corporation. Those logistics, the details of it need to be worked out still. We’re in the planning stages. We will be consulting with the standing committees on a going forward basis. We need to...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Literacy skills are the foundation of a happy and successful life. On Wednesday, January 27th, families from across the Northwest Territories celebrated Family Literacy Day.

Throughout the Territory, there are many people who are dedicated to helping others in all areas of literacy from numeracy to computer skills. I want to thank the NWT Literacy Council and all the literacy coordinators, aboriginal language instructors, teachers, mentors across the Territory for their commitment. These people make every day a literacy day and I encourage all Northerners to follow their...

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.