Shane Thompson

I'd like to thank the Premier for his answer. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the Premier encourages his colleagues to try and meet or exceed last year's numbers, however, I believe there's a better way of doing it. Mr. Speaker, would the Premier please direct his colleagues to add summer employment opportunities for students as part of the 2017-2018 business plan?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my colleagues. Out of these applications, 306 students were hired by the government. This sounds like a great number and it is; however, the previous year we had more summer students being employed by the government.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister spoke about the Premier and former Minister of Human Resources encouraging all the departments to see how we can better utilize our summer students. I think this is a great step, however we need to do more. This includes having the departments identifying the number of positions within their business plans and not rely...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, just to clarify I've heard two different answers has a decision been made how we're proceeding, or are they waiting for that meeting to make that final decisions? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess my struggle or I'm trying to figure out and the community's trying to figure out how we're going to proceed with this. Has the department been working with the community to see if they're going to build and rent back, or is the department going to do a stick built, or are they going to bring in a modular unit? We need to get that clarified. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're on page 2, correct? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Previously we talked about the Health and Social Services about replacing the health station in Trout -- or Sambaa K’e. Could the Minister please provide us an update on what the status is with this project as DPW asked is the department actually building this structure? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Premier for his answer. I appreciate the fact that you work in this operational needs out there; however, if we're developing business plans operational needs should be identified throughout the year. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh asked the Minister of Human Resources to sit with Cabinet and develop a concrete of summer employment opportunities for post-secondary students. Will the Premier work with his colleagues to set the goal of 400 summer students for the 2017-2018 fiscal year? That would work out to about a cost of $4.5 million; money well spent, I figure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, Mr. Speaker, I spoke about summer employment. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to try a different avenue with questions today; I'm going to ask the Premier what he can do. We've heard in this House that the Premier spent the last year encouraging his colleagues on Cabinet to hire more summer students. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier please advise the House how he's encouraging his colleagues to hire summer students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, October 27th, our colleague from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh spoke about the importance of summer student employment. This past spring, I spoke about summer employment for our returning post-secondary students and the students that are graduating from our high school. Mr. Speaker, as a person that was born and raised in the NWT, I understand the importance of summer employment for the students. I'm not going to talk about the days that I was employed as a summer student because it kind of ages me, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, when I was in university, I had...

I thank the Minister for that answer, and it's actually great to hear that the corporation is working with other departments on that and I think it's a good idea in working with the communities and moving forward.

The Minister actually talked about, you know, Colville Lake and spending $2.7 million, if I'm correct, installing batteries to make sure the solar panels hooked in there. Will the Minister look at the other smaller communities south to see if they can actually do that to make it more efficient for a community? Another pilot project, I would love to have it in my riding, but if we...

I thank the Minister for his answer. I guess I'm looking at when they develop this strategy, which we haven't seen yet, has the corporation actually worked with the communities to develop specifically their own strategic plans to help reduce the cost of electricity? So can the Minister please advise this House, if the corporation has worked with the communities to develop their strategy as part of their strategy, or is it the strategy for the whole NWT's generic picture?