Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Yes, the budget has been talked about this afternoon, the $6.5 million that is there before us and we are working with it. Once it’s approved by this Assembly, we will move along with renovating those schools as highlighted.

Costs to the French schools that the Member alluded to is not there yet. We have some figures that were brought to our attention, but that figure could change once the court decision happens. So, we are currently waiting for that to happen so we can prepare ourselves as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Not only that, but working with...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Our overall goal as a department is obviously to look after our schools throughout the Northwest Territories, the 49 schools. Some are very much deteriorating and some are fairly new. Now our overall emphasis is to focus on those schools that are badly in need, whether it be a renovation or a retrofit. So we will continue to push that forward during the capital planning process on an annual basis.

Over the years, obviously, the Members have supported us at that level, so we’ll continue to push that forward.

The $400,000 for the JK, that’s just some of the upgrades that we...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Most definitely part of the planning study obviously would engage community leadership, community members. They need to be involved along the way. We are looking at the long term, up to 10 years ahead. The classification status is still yet to be identified. As I indicated, this is a planning study that is just currently underway in 2014-15. Whether it is classification C or D, E, that will be identified at that time.

The Building Canada Fund, I was just asking my staff if we ever accessed that kind of funding, and to my knowledge we haven’t identified an area where we can...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We are currently dealing with the college when it comes to the community learning centres. We’ve heard from some of the communities. I believe there are 23 communities with community learning centres and 10 without, so those are the communities that we hear from. We’ve been dealing with the college at that level.

The Member alluded to a needs assessment at the community level. What we’re doing now is, obviously my department is overseeing the needs assessment and feasibility study 2014-15, and the Member is asking if it will be captured as part of using our existing...

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. Yes.

Mahsi. I thought I did that in my last answer where different programs, Canada’s Job Fund is a national program. Specifically for the Northwest Territories, we are receiving funds towards those individuals that do not qualify for EI and we’ve created some incentives, as well, where we have $500,000 in addition to other provincial jurisdictions because of our uniqueness, our remoteness and the highest unemployment in the Northwest Territories. So that’s one particular program.

There’s also the Labour Market Development Agreement. There’s the small communities programming, employment programs...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The detailed stats I don’t have in front of me, but I can provide that to the Member. We have been closely monitoring the stats that have been coming in, whether it be nationally or even our own Northwest Territories jurisdiction. We’re coming out with some solutions to deal with those matters as we move forward with the federal government as well. So those are some of the programming that we need to put more emphasis on to deal with those individuals at the community level. Mahsi.

I agree with the Member that there should be equal deliverance of programs to the three main campuses and also the 23 community learning centres across the Northwest Territories out of 33 communities. Those are some of the areas that I have captured with the board chair and also the president. We meet on a frequent basis, highlighting the needs of the communities based on the needs assessments that we are currently developing through Skills for Success. We are at the preliminary stages, but we are currently re-evaluating our program deliverance and working, again, very closely with the college...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This is an area that Aurora College has been exploring, the Board of Governors, for some time now. They are currently in the process of developing a long-term plan, a five-year plan on how they can deal with the community deliverance of certain programming. So we are, as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, also working very closely with the college as part of their overall goals and objectives of what kinds of programs will be delivered, whether it is Inuvik, Fort Smith or Yellowknife and the surrounding communities. So those are some areas we are...

We’re fully aware of all of these different stats and the calculation that has been changed by the federal government. It is a federal government administered program, the EI, so I will provide the facts that the Member is alluding to.