Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement today I talked about how we can get more people into the workforce. One of the problems is that even where there are jobs, they go to people from outside the Northwest Territories instead of Northerners. My questions are to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. What tools does the government have now to make sure that NWT residents get first priority for jobs in the Territories, whether those jobs are with government or industry? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Part of this government’s overall goals and objectives are to work on decentralizing to the regions. Part of that is to have qualified people from the regions and from the communities. Of course, we’re always pushing for the education system into the communities and into the regions so we can have more qualified people from our regions so they can tackle all of those job opportunities that will be coming out, whether it be the pipelines or government jobs or community government jobs. Not only that, we also supported the Small Community Employment Support Program out of this Assembly. We’ve increased the funding so we’re promoting more community-level job opportunities. We’ll continue to do that, along with the mining industries, the Mine Training Society and Aurora College. We all have partnerships in place. We need to promote more of that at the community level.
Are there any other options the government can consider to make sure that Northerners are top priority when it comes to hiring?
Yes, there is. Again, our overall goals and objectives of this government have highlighted those community employments as a priority for us. Not only that, but through my Department of Education, Culture and Employment we have a Labour Market Agreement that we provide training and services to the small communities and we’ll continue to do that. There is a training opportunity in that manner, in that fashion. Not only that, again reiterating the partnerships we have with the communities, with the mining industries, we do have a quarterly meeting with the industry representatives as well. We want to create more opportunities for these individuals, but we have to keep in mind that those individuals need to be trained and qualified for those positions. That is our goal as this government.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
