Jackson Lafferty

It is important to deal with this particular issue the Member has raised. One of the areas we’ve been dealing with is the language boards: the Aboriginal Language Revitalization Board and the Official Languages Board, which deals directly with the community and the leadership at the community level — the educational leadership.

Certainly this is one of the priorities of the group we work closely with and with our department. The Dene font the Member has referred to has been discussed for a number of years now, as the Member alluded to. The Dene fonts available may have been outdated, but that...

We do have data on information that the Member’s referring to. I’ll be more than willing to share that with the Member. It’s been updated every now and then from certain communities. In some communities there is high unemployment. Some communities, specifically on training and education, the post secondarys…. We do have that data at our Department of ECE at our disposal.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do recognize the small communities that may not have career development officers, but they are served out of regional offices. Specifically on Lutselk’e and Fort Res, they are being serviced out of the South Slave regional office. There is also, specifically with Lutselk’e…. We have a joint partnership with DEAS, schools and Aurora College.

Just on the career development alone, those officers do provide counselling and, also, workshops in the communities that deal with resume writing, budgeting and educational planning. We do provide those services to the communities...

Mr. Speaker, it is this fall. With respect to moving forward on this, I’d like to listen to the aboriginal language groups as well — the board that we’ve established. Apparently there have been some challenges for them to meet. It may not have been that easy because there may not have been the board members available. We will continue, like I said, this fall. August 12 is the scheduled meeting, and we’ll do what we can as Education, Culture and Employment to make that happen.

I’d like to see that happen. I’d like to meet together with the Official Languages Board and also the Aboriginal...

Mr. Speaker, I think we do have that capacity with the Official Languages Board giving us some advice on moving forward with this particular piece of work. It is important for us. We are, as a department, looking at the technology sources. The First Dene and also the WinMac Dene fonts are in the Macintosh area. So we are moving into today’s technology. That is what we are faced with today. We are looking at options to move forward on this particular item on Dene fonts. It is recognized that we need to work with that. That’s what the aboriginal language groups are working with, with our...

There’s been some changes within the Income Support area. We are developing a new initiative, “ready to work,” for those individuals who are employable. So that’s one of our initiatives at Education, Culture and Employment. I’ll be more than willing to share that with the committee and the Member once it’s produced. I’m also willing to share that information the Member has requested, certainly.

Our career development officers from the regional perspectives and also the community level have direct contact with the industry, our government — the GNWT, ECE department — and with the local First Nations organizations and also with Income Support — the clients, if that’s the case. So they are providing various workshops, like I said earlier, providing certain tools for individuals to enter the workforce, whether it be upgrading or taking on a training-on-the-job program.

Mr. Speaker, we do provide Communities Skills for Work, which prepares our Northerners for work in the workplace, and...

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 7, Securities Act, be read for the third time.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Part 1 – 19th Annual Report of the Victims Assistance Committee of the Northwest Territories.

Document 55-16(2), Part 1 – 19th Annual Report of the Victims Assistance Committee of the Northwest Territories, tabled.

Mr. Speaker, that was one of the goals of the department. There is a briefing that will be forthcoming to the committee, so they’re aware of what progress we’ve made. Certainly, we’ll be happy to present to the committee upon the completion of our session. We’ll be gathering all the information and we’ll certainly share that.