Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was going to do it on Thursday, but I guess I will do it today and I can embarrass Briann Nelson and Hailey Sassie, both from Fort Liard, who are pages here. Briann was actually one of the individuals I was talking about who won the opportunity as part of the NEG Games team. Thank you very much for being here.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So if I heard the Minister correctly, the last five years they have made this decision, so the TEP program has been 47 years they have not looked at all these numbers and they have just focused on the last five. So again, did the college actually look at their promotion and their recruitment process out there to get students in this program? Was that part of the evidence-based decision making? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. It is a funding ratio but it is still globally the Northwest Territories is funded that way. We are not going to see a junior kindergarten teacher in Wrigley. Correct? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize to the Minister. Maybe I am a little off my question here. I have heard Mr. Lovely talk about the funding to the revenue is going to come from; the increase is going to come through SFA. We have seen that the college is going to increase the program costs for the social work program and the TEP program, so it's going to be an increase which is going to come from SFA. Is that going to be something that the college can just -- is that their way of collecting the money that we have got cut from the department? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to start with Aurora College here. When we look at Aurora College in the education program and social work program it provides immense value for the NWT residents, but it is also integral to NWT and Canada to the TRC recommendations and some of that. So I guess my first question coming to this is: were the cuts an evidence-based decision? So was there evidence of that besides the numbers? Did they look at it and look at all the valuations and all the recommendations and make an evidence-based decision? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for his answer. I guess I am struggling with this fact that, if you are going to take the supports that are out there for kindergarten to grade 12 or grade 9 and you have to use those supports at junior kindergarten, now we are going to have an impact on the whole school because, if you take a person away from where they are supposed to be into the other area to junior kindergarten, it has an impact. Will the Minister look at this area of concern and see how it can be better addressed? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I understand what the Minister is trying to say. I understand we are trying to move forward. However, if we just match these numbers that we have now and we don't utilize all that money, that is $3 million just sitting there. To me, it is about small communities getting people to work. Will the Minister make a commitment once they have come up with a strategy within the next six months that they will bring it back to committee so that we can look at this information? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That will be all the questions I have at this point in time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize to the Minister. Could you please clarify that? Somebody was asking me a question and I got sidetracked, so I apologize to that, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for his answer. Again I appreciate the comments. Can we get a number, a goal, a number that we can look at? Because you are only giving us six months. How many people will we hopefully be able to give employment after these six months so that we can reduce that income support number? Thank you, Mr. Chair.