Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize Iris Catholique. She is a former resident of Lutselk'e. Her family is still in Lutselk'e, I think she resides in Yellowknife now. Thank you.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to recognize the Dechinta graduates, the on-the-land graduates including Tumbah Antoine and other students as well as program leaders that made this program quite possible. I'd like to extend congratulations to them, also acknowledging Celine and Jim Antoine and their family being present in the gallery, and also Deneze Nakehk’o as well. Last but not least, I'd like to recognize two Pages from my riding of Kakisa: Maverick Canadien. His parents are Terry Simba and Julie Canadien. He's in grade seven; he's 12 years old. I'd like to welcome here to the Assembly, at the same time, Sadee Simba. Her parents are Nora and Wayne Simba and she's in grade 8 and she's 14 years old. I believe their chaperone is Nora Simba. Mahsi.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member from Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to welcome Wade Vaneltsi also my cousin from Fort McPherson. Also I'd like to recognize Jordan Peterson and also everybody from Dechinta who just spent two months in the bush, Mr. Speaker. It's good to see. Mahsi cho.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in gallery. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd also like to recognize Jim Antoine in the gallery today. Jim is the chair designate of the new Territorial Health and Social and Services Authority and I look forward to continuing to work with Jim over the coming years as we move to one authority. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would like to, first of all, congratulate everyone who was part of the Dechinta University experience this time around. I would like to recognize and introduce my partner Janice McKenna. Thank you.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to attend the Dechinta grad on Saturday and just for the record I'd like to let Members know who's all here and which community they're from. Congratulations once again Rachelle MacCauley from Tulita; Tumbah Antoine from Liidlii Kue Fort Simpson; Barbara Ann Blancho, Colville Lake; Sheila Karkagie, Tulita; Wade Clifford Vaneltsi, Fort McPherson; Chelsea Marie Migwy, Behchoko; Kayla Tulugarjuk from Igloolik. We're also getting students from Nunavut as well: Thumlee Etthenegon-Foliot. Once again, congratulations. I'd like to thank the staff for all their hard work and also welcome Jim and Celine Antoine here joining us today and a good friend Deneze Nakehk’o. Welcome and I hope you enjoy the proceedings. Thank you.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The previous speakers stole most of my thunder, but I think there might have been a couple of names that he did miss. I believe Dr. Erin Freeland Ballantyne's in the audience. She's the dean of unbiased activities, research and innovation, Dechinta Bush University. I believe Barbara Ann Blancho of Colville Lake is also in the gallery. Greetings to all the folks here from Dechinta, especially the grads on your important achievement. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today you heard from my Member's statement about the topic of change. As I said in my statement, I have some questions of the Premier to help clear up some confusion and hopefully help the residents of the NWT have a clear understanding what is happening here in this Assembly. Mr. Speaker, Cabinet decided that it was important to freeze excluded employee salaries increases and potential bonuses as part of the government's reduction plan. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier please explain to us in the public why Cabinet froze the excluded employee salary and at the same time the government continues to advertise in the paper for recruiting future workers and government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What the government announced is that there would be no economic adjustments for excluded employees and this was publicly announced by the Finance Minister in February. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Premier answered part of the question, but I'll move onto my next one. Mr. Speaker, there has been conversation and rumours out in the public service and on the streets of communities that the NWT are about to potentially realign some of the departments. Can the Premier please confirm that this option has been looked at and discussed?
No decisions have been made as of yet. Possibly there could be changes. It depends on the outcomes of zero-base reviews. If there is a business case to support any amalgamations, those proposals will be reflected in the 2017-18 business plans and we'll reviewed with committees this fall, and I hope the committee will support changes that would be proposed, if any, at that time.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. I know for one I will give my hand out and am willing to work with you if it's exchanged back and forth, so I thank the Premier for that statement. Mr. Speaker, with these potential alignments of departments, will the Premier look at reducing the Cabinet size from seven to six as part of the reduction process? Thank you.
Our experience is that workload from Ministers does not significantly decrease when departments are amalgamated, and I'm not saying we're going to do that, but if we do I don’t expect there will be any changes to the number of Cabinet Ministers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. Mr. Speaker, I understand and appreciate how the Premier answered the question, but can he please explain what the difference is between Cabinet positions and public servant positions when we're doing reductions. If the government wants the public service to reduce their numbers, why can't we do that to show leadership on our end? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for clarifying the position. If the business case shows that there's opportunities for increased effectiveness and efficiencies, that's where the difference comes in, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during my Member's statement I’d talked about the small community employment program that's administered by ECE. I'd like to ask the Minister a couple of questions. Mr. Speaker, what is the plan for the utilization of the small community employment program in this fiscal year?
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you. With the small community employment support program, it's a program that's been around for many years. We're going to continue to do the work and focus on the training on the job as well as community initiative, provide project based on training. Training on the job has been very successful in our communities. Currently, I believe we do the program in 26 communities in the Northwest Territories. Small community is defined by any community that is less than 1,000 people. In the 2015-16 fiscal year we had 303 NWT residents participate; 196 went through the individual training on the job, and the other 107 through group-based training opportunities just to name a few of the successes of this program. We're going to continue in those two areas and hopefully we get more requests. There was a surplus of the funding last year and hopefully moving forward we get more people in the communities getting ready to take on some of the jobs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Minister another question on this. Mr. Speaker, has the Minister engaged other Ministers in carrying out the mandate of increasing employment in small communities specific to this particular program?
I think the program is very unique and very successful, and as I mentioned on April 20th when we did release the Labour Market Information and Needs Assessment and we're starting to develop the action plan that we're hoping to table in the fall session that from now until we develop that action plan we are going to be getting a lot of feedback and information all our stakeholders and that includes other departments as we move forward with the Labour Market Information Action Plan, but also utilizing the small community employment support program as we start developing skill development in our residents.
Can the Minister advise how the Department of ECE will be allocating the small community employment program to the communities, whether project based or so much per community, just a quick word on how the funding will be allocated to the small communities?
As I mentioned, Mr. Speaker, there's 26 communities that we currently work with. The reason 26 communities is because we don’t have ECE regional office in all the communities, and the ones that are under 1,000 people, we work with them and we help them work on giving the applications to apply for this funding to support on-the-job training and support group-based activities in the community as well to develop that training. We'll continue to work with all our communities, the 26 of them, to make sure that they have an understanding and in having questions asked in a House like this also brings some public awareness to organizations, community members who want to access the program.
Mahsi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister indicated that the program was underutilized, undersubscribed, so I'd like to ask the Minister if information on how to access small community programs and what type of projects that the small community employment program can be tied to has been distributed to the small communities. Thank you.
I believe our staff regional office has worked really well in the communities. One thing that I did mention here in the House earlier or last week was our employment transition office. It's the first year of the program that the pilot's taken place in and they're out in the communities talking about these kind of programs, as well as getting our residents into employment job opportunities by developing skills and getting the education that they need. The employment transition officer is just going through his first year. We're hearing a lot of great successes on it and we're going to continue to use them to promote this program in the 26 communities throughout the Northwest Territories, and we do have five ETOs currently.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I spoke about the economic evaluation of the road to Whati and I have questions for the Minister of Transportation. Fortune Minerals wants this road built as a pre-condition of developing its mine. What kind of a commitment is the government getting from Fortune Minerals? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories isn’t getting any commitment from Fortune Minerals or we are not giving them any commitment for this road neither. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Given that answer, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Minister could tell us how the government will make a decision about whether to invest in the road to Whati? Thank you.
The 18th Legislative Assembly mandate confirmed by all our Caucus colleagues includes the investment in transportation which also includes investment in the Whati Tlicho all-season road, so that decision moving forward was made by all Members of this Assembly.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don’t feel like I made that decision. I haven't, until yesterday, seen the business case for this road, so I encourage the government to bring this investment forward for consideration especially given the fact that the economic benefit of the road alone without the mine is so small. Is this road in fact a subsidy to the mining industry?
This road is not a subsidy for the mining industry. This road was brought forward by the Tlicho Government and it was pushed forward alongside with the Department of Transportation. It's unfortunate maybe the Member didn't get to read the business case before caucus decided that this was part of our 18th Assembly's in our mandate, but it is what it is. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mahsi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I will be pursuing this topic again apparently. My final question has to do with who is going to obtain the employment to build the road. The economic evaluation says that the Tlicho Region will be the contractors for this road, a road that's being built with public money, and so to what extent is the government putting in place measures that will ensure that despite the fact that people in Whati have a high unemployment rate that they will be prepared to take advantage of the road building jobs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, no decisions have been made. Even if we were going to be building this road, we are still waiting to hear back from the federal government on infrastructure dollars of this road and when we receive those funds from the federal government, if we receive those funds from the federal government, how we proceed will be something that the department will have to look at in how we farm out this contract.
