Jackson Lafferty

Obviously, literacy is one of our top priorities within our department. We’ve heard over and over from committee members that we need to focus on developing literacy programming and having partners involved. So, this is involving NGOs from across the Northwest Territories, working with Aurora Collage as well, and again NGOs, to deliver various programs from K to 12 equivalent courses and having the NWT Literacy Council actively engaged in this, as well, because they represent all the communities as well.

I believe that more investment in this area will be seeing positive results. We have seen...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Most definitely we can provide that information. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I believe this is a great idea and we need to start talking not only with Inuvik but other regions as well. The more healthy food that we can have into our school system, the better for our children to learn. Having dedicated resources towards this type of initiative, obviously that would be considered as we move forward. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Every year we go through these changes. It’s all based on FTEs, enrollment total and if that changes then obviously the budget changes and that reflects on the total enrollment. Mahsi.

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We made some changes to our income security area where we want to have people entering the workforce as part of our target initiative, and we have five employment services officers into the regions. We have slated one for each of these communities: Fort Smith, Inuvik, Norman Wells, Fort Simpson and Behchoko. So, five in total. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I will certainly commit to that. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Those three positions are two linguists within the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat and one registrar, teacher certification is from headquarters to the Beaufort-Delta and also the South Slave region.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Any opportunity that arises, obviously, we like to take advantage of it. We’ve heard about this particular area, whether it be a traditional food that’s available. Again, it would have to be at the discretion of the schools to allow that into their facility. We are, as I stated, working very closely with BDEC, the Beaufort-Delta Education Council, if this is something that they want to explore and have that available to our students. This is just recent news to us, so it is being discussed at BDEC level with my officials. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Part of the pilots that I referred to before, there are a couple of initiatives that we’re undertaking. Elders in school and also resiliency programming. We wanted to test pilot that into some of the small, isolated communities. One of them, obviously, is Ndilo, and supporting self-regulation programming through specialized equipment.

So those are just a couple of initiatives that are on the go. I’m sure there will be others as well. As we’ve done in the past with the family resource initiative that we’ve undertaken and building on that, working on health and social services...