Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize to the Minister. Maybe I am a little off my question here. I have heard Mr. Lovely talk about the funding to the revenue is going to come from; the increase is going to come through SFA. We have seen that the college is going to increase the program costs for the social work program and the TEP program, so it's going to be an increase which is going to come from SFA. Is that going to be something that the college can just -- is that their way of collecting the money that we have got cut from the department? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Deputy Minister Haener.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think what the MLA is trying to get at is that, when we worked with the college around the amounts of money and the areas that they needed to reduce their expenditures and their budget on, one of the options that they had in order to adjust that target is to actually increase their revenues.
The college receives revenues, obviously, through the tuition that it charges students, and they also receive revenue through what they charge students for student housing. What the college did was it looked at those two areas, and found that, in some instances, they had not increased rates for a considerable period of time. What they were charging was actually below what students would receive from Student Financial Assistance, the tuition amount in particular.
The college explored that and determined that they would adjust both the tuition and the amount they charged students for housing in order to increase their revenues, and thereby avoid making reductions in other areas. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Haener. Next, we have Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am going to stay with the Small Community Employment Program. It was not exactly 100 per cent clear to me that the $928,000 that sits in contract services was targeted to small communities. Could I get that clarification first, please?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That $100,000 was targeted specifically to small communities for wage subsidies. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the Small Community Employment Program, $3,339,000 as the Minister has indicated is also a wage subsidy program to obtain skills? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is correct, as well as working on community projects as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Chairman, could I get clarification on what "community projects" means? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Moses.
As I mentioned earlier, community initiative projects, we work with small community governments as well as organizations to target employers to employ some of our residents. There is a focus on youth with that one. We have some good examples. In the Fort Good Hope, we were able to do a summer job training with, I think, eight youth. In Lutselk'e, we have the harbour project as well. That is work with different organizations moving forward. We want to build and develop those partnerships and support organizations as well as Aboriginal governments to provide training and projects so that our residents get the skills and the training that they need so that they become employable within their community, or also if they want to work somewhere else in the North. We do put a target on youth, as mentioned to you earlier. We want to make sure that that demographic from 18 to 25 is able to get the jobs and become a part of society. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chairman, under the description of the Small Communities Employment Program, it refers to longer-term employment. Training needed for longer-term employment, is that a must criteria for this that, at some point, they must be trained for long-term jobs? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is part of the criteria when we look at applications coming forward. We obviously want to get our residents in long-term employment when we look at some of these projects moving forward, giving them the skills and the training that they need so they can become employable in the communities, or as I mentioned, work for one of the mining companies or find jobs elsewhere in the North. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Small Community Employment Program, if it has these strings attached to it, it is probably not going to be deliverable. There is $339,000 that the government was, I guess, barely delivering, or there was more money in that, and we are not able to deliver it. When we talk about small employment, we want to create jobs. We do not want that to be a subsidy. I recognize that it is a deep subsidy, 80 per cent, and the Minister has made that clear. Even so, I think that there are too many strings attached to this money that will probably go unspent, and that is a problem with it.
We have some organizations at the community level that may just employ these guys if they would be given positions. Let us take the band in the community. The band community was given some positions and some money to hire a few people working on the various projects, whether they are working with youth, or whether they are doing community works or working on housing projects. Maybe it does not matter, but a few positions coming through this program; but if it is tied in to training, youth, long-term employment possibilities, it is starting to sound a lot like the federal government assets program, which one of the criteria was that it needs to result in a position, result in a job. Because there are no jobs available, that program is difficult to deliver. I think we should remove those types of criteria and make this into an actual job creation program.
If you think about the fact that this is not a lot of money but it can help a lot of people, if we were to hypothetically say that if somebody went to work for the band, one individual worked for the band doing community works projects, whatever, and then worked for the entire summer, then that individual could maybe get enough hours to be able to draw employment insurance. If that individual was on income support for the last several years and we created a job for them, for an expenditure of not a real high wage but something that gives them a lot more money than what he is getting off income support, and he goes to work every day for five or six months, and then if it happens to be in the winter, he could draw EI, maybe. There are a lot of good traditional economy programs available that maybe the person could try to do some traditional economy like trapping and hunting and things like that during the winter months. This here does not really accommodate that. So if the government is going to only delivery a portion of this budget but then use the same rules to expect to deliver a budget that is 10 times higher than what they had last year, how do they expect to do that? All of a sudden they are expecting a lot of people around the communities to have jobs available for people. Like getting into this the best part about this budget was for when we were negotiating something when the Minister of Finance wrote to us and said there would be an additional $3 million in small communities employment. That was good news.
It no longer sounds like good news, Mr. Chairman. This now sounds like more of the same, meaning more of what cannot be delivered. So I think that there should be some reconsidering on here on removing some of the strings on this so that people can go to work and use this program to get a job and work for whoever would be able to have a job available for them without making it into a wage program, long-term employment, skills development, and so on. It is not what my communities need, but you know, people who can work at the mine are working at the mine. You know, I am not going to create and pull the people out of this program to go to work at the mine. This is a program we are asking for so that individuals could take this program, use this program as a job creation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and we do hear the concerns of the Members and wanting to have a job creation fund. This program specifically is to give our residents in some of our smallest communities the skills that they need, the training that they need, and some of the education that they need so that they can go and seek employment within the North. We do hear all the feedback as we are developing a strategy, because we have done a big increase and it is a good news story; $3 million going into the small communities is a good news story.
We have got to promote the program a lot better. We need all Members to promote that program with their leaders in their communities and work together so we can get our residents back to work. We are listening to the feedback. We will be taking that feedback into consideration as we are developing a strategy for how we spend this money. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I may as well pick up where my colleagues left off. You know, it is a great increase to the small employment, as the Minister knows himself. You know, we are in demand of a lot of employment in our communities. The communities I represent are, you know, 34 per cent, 35 per cent, 39 per cent for the three communities that I represent, and it is good to see an opportunity to create jobs. One of my colleagues mentioned two days ago, just imagine if we could create 10 jobs in each community over the next three years. That is 90 jobs created, and I think that that is a good opportunity, but you know it would make a great difference if these funds are available April 1st. Can the department ensure that this is possible? Or even by the end of April? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. April 1st is the start of the new fiscal year. It is budgeted in the main estimates and, once the budget is approved, those funds will become available in the new fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Anything further, Members? Go ahead, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That sounds great. I know we were given the opportunity to start a committee of rural and remote communities, and you know this line item was listed under there. I am not sure whether there would be opportunities under the committee to make changes to how this pot of money is spent. That is usually how things operate under such committees, but I would just like to ask the Minister if that would be possible, like if this committee was struck, to sort of give direction to the department as to how these funds can be spent? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and we have been hearing all the feedback already from the back-and-forth, and it is something that we can bring to our rural and remote communities to get some feedback as well as direction, but also to the Social Development Committee as well. That is the oversight for this department, so we are definitely looking for feedback. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing but good news today. You know, that is good to hear. There are a lot of projects in my riding that I could say this will benefit. You know, we just have to work closely with the communities to ensure that they are aware of these funds, and I am sure the Minister will have a number of proposals before him shortly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Nothing further.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Moses, did you want to add to that or comment to that?
No. I just appreciate the Member's feedback. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Questions. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple more, and since we are on small community employment I will stick with that for one moment. Barring that all goes well in terms of what we are trying to do in delivering these funds, what is the department's position in terms of trying to defend this pot of money to be there for the future and, you know, make this a sustainable pot of money? Or are we just looking at a one-time contribution and expecting to go back to the normal $340 to $400 range in years following? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and it has become a line item in these main estimates so it will be ongoing pending that we do get the uptake and that we do get our employers, our industry, business working with the department as well as our Aboriginal governments utilizing this pot of funding. As long as it gets the uptake and moving forward, we can continue to see it as a line item. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Literacy funding is obviously an important component to the success of reaching our goals and objectives as a territory, in particular helping those who are already in the workforce, but also getting many more into the workforce. Can we just get some clarification on why that pot of money has dropped by nearly $500,000 from 2015-16 to 2016-17 and now 2017-18? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In 2015-16 there was extra funding that the department had put into the program, but historically it is the amount that you see in this year's main estimates. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I am done with this activity. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Nakimayak.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Getting back to the Small Community Employment Fund, I know some of my colleagues mentioned that, and yourself, as well, pertaining to wage subsidy on employment. Will this qualify for other projects some other departments of the GNWT will be working on in the remote communities? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Nakimayak. Minister Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Pending that we have partnership with an organization in the community, I think it is going to be a possibility. Moving forward, we are working with the other departments on projects that they have, as well, through other areas, but pending that we do have those partnerships with organizations and have an employer that we can definitely deliver this, it would be a great idea following our Skills 4 Success as well as onthejob training and the skill development for our residents. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
