Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the answer is yes, we are expanding our Trades Apprenticeship Program. We’ve invested several hundred thousand. Let’s say $200,000 for the additional support for our apprenticeships and through our Labour Market we’ve identified another $400,000 in that area. Throughout the department we do have approximately a million in that figure that supports the apprenticeship and the trades sector.
The new funding that’s been identified is focusing on the women and aboriginal people in the communities for the Northwest Territories; so strictly focusing in that area. Also, we are, Mr. Chair, reviewing a program as a pilot project where we’re potentially having apprenticeship preparation for aboriginal persons programming similar to the ones in Alberta, if we can deliver that model in the Northwest Territories and other models that we can certainly utilize that we can have individuals benefit from it.
Mr. Chairman, yes, the answer will be we are making changes and providing more opportunities for those small, isolated communities. Mahsi.
Mr. Chairman, thanks to Minister Lafferty for that response. I think that is going in the right direction. I hope to see a couple of apprentices in Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e as a result.
In the activity of career and employment development, there is a good increase again in that activity. I am wondering if it is all focussed in on career centres and, in other words, in either the regional centres or Yellowknife or is there going to be opportunities for career and employment development in the small communities. As opposed to just yes, I would like to know what some of the new opportunities are for in that activity area. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, yes. Throughout the career and employment development, we have added a new initiative, as the Members are aware. Smaller community summer employment supports, that certainly will go a long way in small, isolated communities for providing employment to the youth. We do have regional representatives and also at the community level that deal with career counselling. We provide funding to the schools as well, provide that to the community outreach workers and then career officers and so forth.
Mr. Chairman, we can provide more of the detailed breakdown of the actual amount of the main estimates, $1.8 million, if the Member wants that. We do have the information that we can provide. It is just that we don’t have that here in front of us. Mahsi.
Mr. Chairman, I thank the Minister. As opposed to at this point I actually thought about what the strategy is for the government. This breakdown, my feeling is that in the area of career and employment development that the government, I think, has an obligation to maybe look at the areas of the greatest amount of unemployment and not using unemployment statistics, of course, because those are only if you ever get to the position where you can draw employment insurance. I am wondering if the government would look at employment rates in the small communities. I know that the employment rates are fairly high in the regional centres and where I know that the last statistics that I have for employment rates are in the 40 percent employment rate. It really is the real telling figure of what is happening in the small communities, especially I am finding that there is just no work in small aboriginal communities. People are always scrambling for income to pay their expenses and so on. I am wondering if the government is using employment rates as some form of strategic position in order to focus their efforts on career development and employment development. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, we gather as many stats as we possibly can to develop case arguments with the federal government, because they are our partners as well. We just signed off a Labour Market Agreement just recently that deals with the youth, with those individuals that are ineligible for EI and training aspect and those individuals that do fall through the cracks. It is a training program in dollars that we have a joint force with the federal government. It is approximately $1.4 million on an annual basis for up to 2014. That is just an area that will certainly benefit the communities.
With the facts and the stats that the Member is referring to about the employment in the community, the stats, we have fully utilized that with the federal government. We continue to use that information within our department, as well, to develop a strategic plan on a going forward basis. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Next on my list is Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, I was looking at the conclusion of this page to go back to page 10-17, but I was looking to complete this page first.
Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditure summary, advanced education, $43.816 million.
Agreed.
Mr. Menicoche.
Mr. Chairman, I seek Committee of the Whole’s indulgence. Can we turn back to page 10-17, Education, Culture and Employment?
The Member is asking for consent to go back to page 10-17.
Agreed.
Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have a committee motion I would like to read in. I am going to distribute it.
Mr. Menicoche is making a motion. Go ahead.
Mr. Chairman, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment immediately commence planning to ensure that a new school and gymnasium is included in the multi-year capital plan for the community of Trout Lake. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
Page 10-17, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, operations expenditure summary, $181.532 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Okay. We can go back to page 10-24, grants and contributions, advanced education, contributions, $32.271 million.
Agreed.
Page 10-25, active positions, advanced education, information item. Agreed?
Agreed.
We are moving on to page 10-27, income security, operations expenditure summary, activity summary. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again following up on my comments in my opening remarks and others spoke to the same issue. I have questions on the $400,000 that is going to establishing a coordination committee or a steering committee for nutritious foods across the NWT. This is the latest and, I believe, third morph into this incarnation in response to our repeated requests of Members for a milk subsidy or some sort of a direct program to nutritious food. The milk subsidy was focused very much on children, especially young children, and the department continues to dilute that into something meaningless, relatively meaningless and this time it sounds particularly bureaucratic, more so each time I see words. I’m wondering what the Minister really means with this $400,000 NWT Nutritious Foods Steering Committee. Thank you.
Minister of Education.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the $400,000 that’s been identified would cover a variety of, I guess, sectors or a committee to identify what’s important in the communities. I wouldn’t call this meaningless money. There’s $400,000 going to the communities. We want to spend the $400,000, the majority of it, probably 90 or 95 percent of it, in the schools, in the community, into the organizations’ hands so they can deliver a breakfast program or other nutritious program. We can’t call it meaningless, Mr. Chair.
I think it’s important to identify that we are working with the NWT Foods First Foundation as well as Health and Social Services, the Stats Bureau and ENR and other school boards as well are involved and medical and health care. So those are the organizations that are actively involved with the community, whether it be the breakfast program, the school programming or the community programming. So they’re the ones who will carry this on. So we want to give them the $400,000 because they’re the experts at the table. Mr. Chair, that was the $400,000 that’s been allocated for that. Mahsi.
Well good grief, Mr. Chair, we don’t need bureaucracy like this. Yeah, I could match the number of people on groups and agencies and so on the Minister listed that are working on this and beside which Health and Social Services, according to the departmental document publicly available, NWT nutrition and nutrition related programs and initiatives, the lead for NWT Nutrition Strategy is Health and Social Services. So, Mr. Chair, we want to see direct programs to support nutritious foods in a new and improved way and actually not even that, we just want to put good foods into the mouths of babes, as my colleague Ms. Bisaro put it.
So on that basis, Mr. Chair, I’m going to make a motion, if I may. Thank you.
Mr. Bromley, you’re moving a motion. Go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that $400,000 be deleted from the activity income security under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment Main Estimates 2010-2011, page 10-27, for the Nutritious Foods Steering Committee and its associated activities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The motion is in order. Motion is being distributed. To the motion. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair…(inaudible)…it’s been of great interest to us. When we start talking about the food basket and other areas of nutritious food delivery into the communities, to the schools, and this $400,000 was earmarked so we can identify what’s needed in the communities. As I stated earlier, Mr. Chair, the $400,000, the majority of it will be going to the community, it will be going to the organization so they can distribute it to the students that are without food or the breakfast program in the morning, because we did listen to the Assembly Members about no more studies. So we’re saying the $400,000 will go towards that particular food programming, the nutritious food. So, Mr. Chair, I just want to highlight that we can’t take the food away or the money away from those individuals that desperately need it and to work with it. I think it’s important to highlight that.
You know, we took the study part away. We were going to focus on, okay, what’s out there now, but the majority of the money will be going to the communities. So I just want to reiterate that for the general public that the $400,000, it is going to a good cause and we feel that it should still be part of our budgeting process. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
To the motion. Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. For myself I’m not going to be supporting this. I think the $400,000 that the Minister is speaking to, Mr. Bromley, in my communities that I represent this breakfast program is a big thing in the communities and I cannot take this money away. We can’t allocate it anywhere else. We just could take it away and I’m not going to do that. So I’m not going to support the motion. This program is needed in the communities. Families can’t go and buy $18 for a thing of cereal and $22 for milk. They go to the schools. If they get into the schools early enough, the kids will get a breakfast program. So, I mean, the best thing about it is, like I said, I’m not going to support this motion. I want this money to stay in the budget. So just think of all the little kids you’re going to take that money away from. Thank you.
To the motion. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I initially was thinking that because they reprofiled the money and went in front of committee with the reprofile and just listening to the Minister’s arguments that they’re looking at assisting and augmenting some of the programs that we have in the regions and the communities, that’s something that I certainly would like to see, and I think Mr. Bromley, the mover of the motion, was quite adamant about not setting up another steering committee and making a bureaucratic process. Of course, it’s a concern for all MLAs, that the last thing we need is more government, but at the same time, should the government keep to their reprofiling commitment of helping our communities?
I’ve got a riding with many small communities that take pride in their nutritious programs with whatever little resources that they do have. So just with that, Mr. Chair, I cannot support this motion for deleting $400,000 with respect to this line item. Thank you.
Next on the list I have Mr. Bromley, Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Miltenberger and Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that Members on this side of the House have said that they don’t want to lose this money and I, at the risk of offending anybody, and this is not my intention, but there’s certainly schools in Yellowknife that have the same difficulties that the schools in the communities do and have students who need the breakfast money or whatever.
My concern with this particular pot of money, our understanding was that it was going to be used for a study and I appreciate the department’s reaction to the Social Programs committee’s advice and comments and that it has now been changed. But from what I understood the Minister to say, this is a steering committee, we’re going to establish, as Mr. Bromley said, more bureaucracy and he’s also said we’re going to put it into other programs. Well, you know things that are already there, I have no information on which to base my decision relative to these funds. If the Minister could provide me with a list of the programs that are out there and how this $400,000 is going to be divided up between these programs, no problem. But at the moment what I am hearing is we are going to establish a committee -- Lord knows how much money that is going to take out of the $400,000 -- and they are going to do something with whatever is left, but I don’t know what it is that they are going to do.
I feel really strongly that we are being asked to consider... Basically we are being asked to vote on something that we really don’t know anything about, and it is a real problem. The other thing that Members need to know is that I believe there is an intention for another motion to come forward to replace this money or this particular...basically to advise the department to reprofile money to put food into the mouths of babes, so there will be an opportunity to have their fears about losing this money. I will leave it at that, Mr. Chairman.
Next, Mr. Beaulieu, to the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the motion. I don’t know, I haven’t done any studies on what is needed. I don’t know where this money is scheduled to go. I am in the very same boat as Mr. Menicoche and Mr. Jacobson. I know we have had a lot of discussions about this and actually targeting an actual subsidy for milk and so on; however, as this has evolved today, I don’t want the communities to feel that because the word “committee” falls into the plan, I would then remove something from the schools where it is needed. I mean, our communities are poor. We have, like I have said over and over again in the House here, a 40 percent employment rate in the communities I represent and people I think just get food from day to day, in a lot of cases. So if this is something that is a way of feeding the kids at the school, then I don’t want to see it removed as well. I can’t support this as well.
To the motion. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have some initiatives underway. For example, if we bring forward and all agree to a rate restructuring that will lower the cost of living in the smaller communities through lowering power rates, then we will be in a situation of being able to positively affect the whole food basket. I also would suggest that we are better off to leave this money in the budget where it now is, and the Minister has indicated that most of it is going to go to the communities and he has indicated his willingness to work with committee on this. I think it is important that we consider leaving it in the budget and working forward from here. Once money is removed, it is always very difficult to...(inaudible)...that it is going to go back into a different place. So I would encourage Members to support to keep this money in the budget. Thank you.
To the motion. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As much as I personally feel that the money should be deleted, I am going to have to side with some of my colleagues from the smaller communities who feel that the money may find a good use. I have said this before and I think this is just an example of the government wanting to find a committee or do a study or maybe hire a consultant, and I think that is going to eat up a lot of this money. I think the money could be better spent, and I think that the committee has got to be on top of the department when it comes to trying to find ways and means to get nutritious foods into the children.
We have talked many times about a milk subsidy program and other things like that and I think we have really got to start looking at that. This money, hopefully it gets spent the right way. If we were to take it out, it would just disappear into the abyss and the government would find something else to spend $400,000 on what we probably wouldn’t agree with anyway. So I think I am going to err on the side of caution and side with those that want to keep the money in there. But again, I think the Standing Committee on Social Programs has got to take the department to task and I know I have been to a number of meetings with my colleagues on the Social Programs committee trying to get this milk subsidy up and running. Something like that is meaningful and going to have some real impact on children and is more favourable than what is being proposed, but I am going to have to vote against the motion, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Next, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this discussion on this motion is turning into something that the motion to delete is not. I think we are talking about two different things here. The government is saying yes, support the $400,000. Why then can it not clearly be described to us what the $400,000 is for? Because if it is for a steering committee, I don’t support it. You can buy a lot of food for $400,000 and if we thought it was a milk subsidy or a food breakfast program for children and we keep talking about the communities, this would be, I assume, unless we want to specifically target to small communities, I assume this is all communities. So why is there such a failure on the part of the department and the Minister to explain to us what this is?
I don’t like being asked to say trust us, support us, we can’t tell you what we are going to spend it on, but, you know, leave it in the budget. That is where I have a problem. If that is the case, we might as well just take this entire budget document and say we trust you, go ahead, spend the money how you see fit. But that is why we go through this process of trying to look at this budget on a line-by-line, department-by-department basis. That is why it is called detail, so that we can understand what the money is budgeted for.
I am right now, sitting here, having listened to the Minister, I mean, this thing seems like it has morphed about three or four times. It started off as... When it first came in the business plans it was one thing; by the time it made it to the budget address, it was something else; and by the time it made it actually here to the floor of the House it has turned into something else again.
This is not mad money, we all support nutritious food for children in our schools. Let’s be clear about that. If that is what this is, I am all for leaving it in there, but if this is for a steering committee to look and study and review and, you know, absorb that money on travel and all kinds of things, then, no, I don’t support it.
There are lots of organizations out there right now that are dealing with this whole issue of nutritious food in the schools, I shouldn’t say lots of organizations, but there are organizations, there are good non-government organizations that are dealing with this. So if I could hear, Mr. Chairman, the Minister say that this is going to actually translate into food for school children, not a review of the food basket, not the establishment of a steering committee, then I would totally support leaving that money in there. If I even, during the debate on this motion, could hear the Minister say that, I think that would affect how I vote, but right now I just don’t know. Thank you.
