Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer. I totally agree that the Government of the Northwest Territories is trying to do what's best for their staff, and at no point in time am I saying they're not. However, I guess my concern is, in listening to the constituents out there, there's a variety of challenges that people are dealing with and they're getting counselling out there, so they're not getting the needed support out there. Can the Minister please advise the process if the staff feels that their supervisor is not treating or understanding their challenges properly...

I apologize for not directing my question to the Finance Minister. Thank you for that. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for his answer; however, when I am talking to these people and we're talking about the treatment and that, they've informed me that they have to take sick leave to attend counselling and stuff like that, and this is now an added stress on to people who do not have the sick leave available to them. Can the Minister confirm if this is the process, and if it is, why?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that answer. That is very encouraging. I would really love to see ENR being number one. ENR has a real impact in my riding. I would encourage the Minister to do that. Can the Minister, if they are not going to put a budget line in there, work on developing a plan to encourage the departments and work with us as Regular MLAs as an opportunity so we can find these opportunities for our summer students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi cho to the Minister for his answer. I greatly appreciate that and understand the importance of that, but again some of my smaller communities don't have LHOs and don't have these opportunities. Some of them don't even have students who are going on to university. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister get back to us or tell us if he is able to work with his department to look at hiring some students that are in high school that go back into these smaller communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it will be another opportunity for me to talk about summer student positions here. Mr. Speaker, summer student positions are a great way to get the youth to come back to their communities during their time off from school. This program will also reveal to the students how important education is, especially for securing jobs and potentially a career.

The students employed by the Student Employment Program are already beginning to benefit from their education by way of obtaining a summer position, which is very encouraging. In addition to promoting education...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this Assembly recommends, should the Government of the Northwest Territories consider change to the daylight savings time regulation in the future, that it engages with its counterparts in Alberta and undertake both broad, public, and targeted stakeholders' engagement. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, stand up here to support this motion. I have had the pleasure of knowing Doug since way back when, playing sports. I considered him a friend, even though we were from Hay River and Yellowknife, and we had some really heated battles on the sports field. After that, it was a really good friendship.

One thing I'm going to really be thankful now is that now he can call me "Shane" instead of "Mr. Thompson" every time he talks to me. His professionalism was amazing. He would sit there. As soon as I got elected, it was Mr. Thompson. I go, "Hey, Doug, it's Shane. You...

I thank the Minister for that answer. I guess it disappoints me that we as a government, and we're doing some really good things with our programs and providing these treatments and trying to help our staff people, but unfortunately, now you have to take your annual and sick leave to deal with it. That's disappointing. Can the Minister please advise this House how supervisors are educating and training on working with staff who are going through a counselling process?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I was back home during our break here, I ran into a number of constituents and they were asking about the Employment and Family Assistance Program, and asking for clarification on how it worked. I tried to explain as best I could, but can I get the Minister to please provide us with a brief explanation of how the program works? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister for his answer. I look forward to seeing those numbers. I greatly appreciate the commitment from the Minister to hear that. Will the Minister, and I have asked this before, will the Minister look at working with his colleagues to develop a budget line in the business plan for summer students so that we can actually promote it? I know we were looking at 400 as a number in the past, and we got close to it. Will the Minister commit to working to doing that?