Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. To my left is deputy minister of ECE, Gabriela Eggenhofer; to my immediate right is Olin Lovely, assistant deputy minister of corporate services; and to my far right, Dana Heide, associate deputy minister with ECE.

Mahsi. The overall increase, obviously, is a Collective Agreement that we have to abide with, and it’s an area that we need to work with. So, it’s a Collective Agreement. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We are seriously looking at the Sahtu region, especially with the downturn of the oil and gas operations in that region and what will be the implications on those community members. Are they going to be accessing income security programming? How many individuals are we talking about? We can definitely give you the detailed breakdown for the last two years and going onwards because we need to monitor this. This is part of our Skills for Success, as well, the needs analysis that we have done, the needs assessment, how can we integrate those individuals to be trained for future...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We did a comprehensive review in 2007, and since then we’ve been making changes to our Income Security Program. It’s been eight years now. Obviously, this is an area that we need to seriously look at. As I stated in this House, in 2015 we’re making changes when it comes to subsidy. We’re increasing our overall subsidy programs. It may not be comprehensive to date but this is an area that we need to discuss as a department to move forward. It could be part of the transitional document to have very comprehensive security programming. That should likely take place within the...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. When I speak to the college, obviously we work closely with that community’s learning centre so we have them in the communities, most of the communities. Yes, the Member is quite correct about…and we’ve been supportive along the way on the needs assessment in the Sahtu region and it’s going really well. We have all the stakeholders involved, all the parties from the Sahtu region and various industry members. So, there is a lot of discussion and opportunity for us to move forward on this, and obviously this will possibly lead to a Sahtu institutional discussion that the Member...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I’d like to say thank you to the Members. This is the last budget process for Dana Heide and Gabriela Eggenhofer. I would like to thank them and wish them the best of luck. They will be retiring in 2015, so mahsi cho.

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Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Since we introduced the Early Childhood Worker Grant Program we had just around 200 applicants from across the Northwest Territories and we’re almost at 100 percent in the approval process. It’s been very, very successful to date even though it’s very preliminary. But over 200 applications came in and most of them will be approved, so we should be close to, if not 100 percent, close to 100 percent. We’re very happy with the progress that we’ve made on this particular matter.

We will be closely monitoring those areas to the best of our ability within my department and there will be other departments that I’m sure will be doing the same thing as well.

Again, the Aboriginal broadcasting, even at the local level is very important for the community and also my department. We’ve heard Mr. Blake’s challenge. There have been some issues with the tower. We are working with that. We do have program funding, but we don’t necessarily have infrastructure funding. We’re seeing what’s the best solution addressing this within my department and working very closely with the community, and we will continue to update the Member on this particular matter because we want it up and running again along with others such as CKLB and important Aboriginal...

Chevron has made a total commitment of $410,000 towards these different iPads for new parents. We as a department are contributing $750,000 towards this initiative, as well, as our contribution. This is an initiative that has been in the works for a number of years now. Finally it’s here, so we are moving forward at the end of this month and in the fall, as well, for new parents. Mahsi.