Julie Green

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to report today on efforts to introduce a living wage in Yellowknife. The principle guiding this work is that people who work full time should not be living below the poverty line. Eleven Yellowknife organizations with a total of more than 300 employees have now signed with a pledge to pay their employees the living wage.

First, a little background. In 2015, a northern non-profit commissioned an economist to calculate a living wage for Yellowknife. The calculation was based on a 40-hour work week. It included expenses such as food, shelter, transportation...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So what I understand, then, is this is like a grubstake; it's an advance on the work with the money expected to come in by the end of the season. Is that correct? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I would like some clarity around the costs associated with the marine operations for this calendar year. Is this an item that is brand new to the budget in this year? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am drowning in the rising tide of the minimum wage, so let me finally ask the Minister: when will the minimum wage be reviewed again? Thank you.

Thank you to the Minister for that. I just want to be clear that I am not talking about the minimum wage. I am talking about a different wage altogether. It's called a living wage, and it is calculated on a community-by-community basis according to the expenses that a family would have in that community, the level of taxation, the kinds of benefits and so on and so forth. So it's different in every place. It's not a minimum wage.

There are several ways that the government could support the living wage, such as providing funds to calculate the living wage in communities outside of Yellowknife...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, Outreach is continuing to get more businesses and organizations to take the living wage pledge. I salute Alternatives North for leading this work and all the living wage employers present and future.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister tell us what portion of this expenditure will be offset by revenues? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just a month ago, I stood here and noted the obvious. We Regular MLAs were at an impasse on budget negotiations with Cabinet. Today, we have a resolution which will pave the way for passage of the budget appropriation bill. It's a compromise we all worked hard on.

Mr. Speaker, it's important to note that we are not all of one mind about budget 2017. We have made some progress on the size of the cuts the Finance Minister originally proposed. They have gone down by a third, from $150 million to $100 million. That, in itself, is an achievement. Regular MLAs...

I appreciate the Minister's good intentions, but he is scolding these students like they are bad children. What we have here are, in the most cases, mature students coming from other communities who have lots of commitments in their lives as care for their children and their parents and so on. It is not a matter of them not sticking to it. It is a matter of them being able to engage in this work at their own pace.

What I would like to think is that the Minister isn't looking at an all-or-nothing solution, but he might look at more flexibility, as he wants in the grade school system, to ensure...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also have a question about this Aurora College functional review. We know that the Teacher Education Program and the social work program have been put in abeyance pending the strategic planning exercise that was going on. So will these programs now be in the functional review, or is their fate going to be captured by this strategic plan? Thank you.