Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I totally agree with the Member. This is one area where we’ll continue to focus, because it’s been in the works for some time now. Formula funding, based on the library allocation, we’ll definitely be discussing further. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Next on my list I have Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. One thing I forgot to mention earlier was along the lines of junior kindergarten. I’m really impressed by the board in the Tlicho region that they’re moving ahead with actually implementing the junior kindergarten in the Tlicho language. I’m really impressed by that. I know they’re working very hard to keep their culture and tradition alive. That’s really great to see and I look forward to that happening in other regions as well as the Sahtu. Hopefully one day very soon it’s up in the Beaufort-Delta region, whether it’s in Gwich’in or Inuvialuktun. I think we’re on the right path here and I just wanted to commend the department in working with the Tlicho region and hopefully very soon with other regions as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I certainly hope too. I would like to see all regions with full-fledged immersion programming. This is a great start for us. The South Slave started it off and then the Tlicho, then Gwich’in and other regions. I would like to see all of them, actually. That would be our long-term goal.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Committee, we’re on 10-17. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one more brief thing. I know the department is working on the curriculum within the Gwich’in language to hopefully bring forward very soon. I know this firsthand because I had the opportunity to travel with the Minister to Alaska to see how they operate over in Alaska with the Gwich’in language. It was very impressive to see two young students there who didn’t know very much Gwich’in when they began, but within not even their first year they are very fluent and speaking with their teacher. I know that’s one area that the Tlicho are moving on, because they were also accompanying us there. It’s really looking positive and I look forward to the future. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. With these kinds of experiences on trips, we bring back best practices and start implementing them in our region. Slowly we’re doing that with the Tlicho and other regions as much as possible. The sooner the better. Mahsi.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Committee, 10-17, activity summary, education and culture, operations expenditure summary, $241.213 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, we’re going to group 10-18 and 10-21 combined. Activity summary, education and culture, grants and contributions, $207.928 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 10-23, information item, education and culture, active positions. Any questions?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 10-25, activity summary, labour development and standards, operations expenditure summary, $10.727 million. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find myself from time to time forwarding people to this particular office. I’m just curious on what type of outreach is provided to the everyday citizen. It’s not so much the employers I’m concerned about, it’s more about the employees that I find that they come to me and say, I think something is wrong, I don’t know who to complain to about what’s happening at our office, and I try to put them in this particular direction. I’m just wondering: are we doing enough to explain employer/employee rights? Are we giving people any awareness that they need to know where to go?
Quite often I hear the first thing is, I’ve got an issue at my office, it’s not a government office, and they’ll say it must be a human rights issue. I say, well, have you started with the employment law first to find out if that’s where it falls under. They looked shocked, then I have to describe where it is and how to get there, so I guess, in short, what type of outreach do we provide the general community – and I’m talking about the whole territory – about the availability and services offered in this? Like I say, I find myself regularly pointing people in this particular direction that’s not necessarily an MLA issue and it’s not for me to say if it’s a labour or human rights issue, but to try to give people the best advice and certainly the right advice so they can follow through with their particular concern, and if it is a concern, at least they have an avenue to pursue it properly. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. For that we’ll go to Mr. Heide.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The employment standards unit do a fair amount of pamphlet-driven educational tours throughout the Territories. We have an on-line presence. Could we do more? I think we could and should do more, but at the moment we do a fair amount, but obviously the Member suggested we should do more and I agree with him.
Thank you. If I were to ask where these pamphlets are, where do we find them? At this point, if they’re sitting at the office, they’re already there. Where would the general person trip across this information to know to go there?
One of the problems I often find with saying go check our website, everything is on there, it’s a bit of a cumbersome and sometimes intimidating process and sometimes you really have to know what you’re looking for to find it.
So where would we find some of these pamphlets, or don’t we have posters, do they do an occasional – I’m not talking about every newspaper – but do they do an occasional ad? We see some of these on-line websites such as, for example, Yellowknife Trader, YK Trader. They have little ads on there. Things like that. How do we do our outreach as provided by the staff there just a second ago? Thank you.
Again, we have the pamphlet on-line presence. The pamphlets are available through the career centres, at a variety of service centres with Service Canada as well as through the governmental liaison officers in the smaller communities. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, what I’ll do is finish off by asking this and certainly hoping I can get some type of positive response from the department, are there some informal websites? I’ll tell you, a lot of people surf some of these common, everyday… I highlighted YK Trader as an example that a lot of people go on out of curiosity, and I would encourage the department to seize upon those types of opportunities to encourage these type of service areas that we have within our departments about we’re here, to know more about labour development, click here and you end up being right where you need to be – which is probably on a government website – and allow them to pursue it as such.
It’s not that easy to just say go to the website, like I said earlier. Or even as highlighted by Mr. Heide about, oh, just go to the career centre and find a pamphlet. I find it quite a daunting task as an MLA sometimes, because the last thing I want to do is turn around and send someone on another goose chase. Oh, don’t worry; the person who will solve your problem is just down the road here. Call them or you may have to call this person and so on and so on. I find that sometimes – and I’m sure these folks can appreciate this when they call our office or e-mail our office – folks are quite frustrated, exhausted, concerned by that time and they’re being pushed because time is of the essence on their concern. It’s very dramatic the way they… The last thing I want to do is push them away and say go find it on your own. I would just encourage the department to find new ways to reach out with people in what I would consider an everyday medium. That’s all. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I agree with the Member that we need to be innovative and creative of sharing information and educational awareness. That’s exactly what we need to do. There is always room for improvement in the programming. This is an area that we listen well with the Member and we will continue to push that forward. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question here with regards to the Minimum Wage Adjustment Committee. My understanding is that we should be getting a report fairly soon. Could I hear from the Minister? I gather this committee has met. When can we expect to see their recommendations? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mr. Chair, the committee met, I believe, late last year and then we have been developing a terms of reference for the committee. I just got that last week or last week and a half. We are moving forward on that. It’s true that the committee has met. They are discussing options on the wage increase for minimum wage. I’m expecting a report very soon. As soon as I get that, we need to go through that. I will keep Members posted on that. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister for that. I look forward to seeing that report. In the program delivery details, labour and career development, there’s a fairly large increase from 2013-14 to 2014-15. Could I get an explanation of what the increase is funding? Thank you.
Mr. Chair, there’s a variety of sections within this, the increase. Partially it’s the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat, the reallocation, $400,000 increase in new initiatives. There’s North Slave and South Slave, so they all get a contribution. The Sahtu oil and gas, $5,000 increase as part of forced growth. Collective Agreement is part of that, as well, $48,000. Amortization. The employment and standards increased in budget of $18,000, again Collective Agreement. There’s another Collective Agreement with management and program support. These are just a variety of areas that offset the increase. Mahsi.
The increase is about $600,000, $550,000. In listening to the Minister, I didn’t quite get all the numbers, but I gather the largest amount is about $400,000 for the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat. Is that an increase to that secretariat or is that to set up that secretariat? Thank you.
Mr. Chair, that is the Small Communities Fund that we borrowed before. Now we are returning it, the $400,000, so it is going back to small community to focus on small community funding. We are very happy to get that back. Mahsi.
Now I’m really confused. I guess I need to ask the Minister if I could get the detailed page that he read from. I thought I heard him say Aboriginal Languages Secretariat.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We will get clarification from the deputy minister, Ms. Eggenhofer.
Mr. Chair, if you recall, the $400,000 used to be in the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat before we had looked at the reorganization of the secretariat. We have now re-profiled the funding of the secretariat and through that re-profiling and restructuring are returning the $400,000 back to the Small Communities Fund. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Eggenhofer. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks to the deputy minister. I’m done. Thank you.
Committee, we are on page 10-25, activity summary, labour development and standards, operations expenditure summary, $10.727 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. 10-26, activity summary, labour development and standards, grants and contributions, $409,000. Agreed? Ms. Bisaro.
Mr. Chair, I just wanted to comment on the funding for Skills Canada. I’m very pleased to see that there. I think that this is an excellent program. The department, I think, recognizes that it is as well. I think it’s only been expanding over the last number of years. We’ve gone from $35,000 from 2012-13 and we skipped last year and we now have $70,000 in 2014-15. The Skills Canada group have been doing a great deal to expand into all areas of the territory outside of just Yellowknife. I think that’s a great program that we are back to funding. I was going to ask a question on the small community employment funding but apparently I don’t support small communities so I won’t ask that question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We will treat that as a comment. 10-26, activity summary, labour development and standards, grants and contributions, $409,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. On 10-27, information item, labour development and standards, active positions. Are there any questions?
Agreed.
There are none. Page 10-29, activity summary, income security. Ms. Bisaro.
Mr. Chair, I have a question with regards to income assistance programs. My recollection is that over the last year to a year and a half to two years, our income assistance requirements have only been going up. There is an increase of about $500,000 from 2013-14 to 2014-15 on this page. I guess I would like to know, from the department, if they are seeing any kind of a trend in the requirements under income assistance. Is this funding going to level off at some point? It has been consistently increasing for a number of years. Can I get some kind of information as to where the department thinks this program is going? Are we going to be funding millions and millions ad infinitum? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that, we will go to Mr. Heide.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The expenditures within the Income Security Program are, as the Member notices, growing. The caseload, the actual number of people accessing the program, is staying relatively the same. However, the cost for things like utilities, fuel and rent are increasing as we move forward. The cost-drivers in this program are economic cost-drivers of the cost of things in communities and elsewhere. Thank you.
