Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to congratulate the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment for his Minister's statement today about small community employment. It's great to see. When positive things are happening we should recognize that commitment. I thank the Minister for that and his work in there. I realize this is short notice, so he may not have this information available, but can the Minister tell us how many projects have been used to date with this program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I can get that information and break it down by region for other Members who want to know how much of the Small Community Employment Fund was actually being utilized in their communities, and I'd be more than willing to share that with the Member. Thank you.
I thank the Minister for his answer and look forward to that information. With that information, could they put the value that the department has put into these projects as well?
Yes, we can get the values for the projects, but some communities might have had multiple projects; others might have just had one, but we can get some of the exact numbers. It varies from community to community as well as from project to project. As I said in my Member's statement, we will be meeting with the rural and remote communities to get some direction and work on how we move forward with the strategy as well as with the fund.
As a member of that committee, I look forward to working with the Minister and Cabinet as we move forward for the small communities. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister explain what is going to happen to these projects that have already put applications in? Are they going to be able to be processed?
The communities that have already applied for projects, we'll continue to support them. Obviously, we're creating employment, we're doing skill development, and we're doing job training, and we want to continue to support that with the communities that have applied for this program, and obviously the projects in the small communities will continue to get support from this fund.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that commitment, and look forward to working with him on this. I guess I'm looking at the regional centres that have already been applying for this program. Will the Minister, I know it sounds hypocritical of myself, but commit to follow through on those projects that they've already applied for in good faith? Will the Minister be willing to work with those projects they've committed to? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, as I mentioned, our mandate is to close the skill gaps in the Northwest Territories, create jobs, create employment, do skill development and training for residents in the Northwest Territories. Previously, when we made those enhancements, we were looking at these regional centres. I do believe to date we have five regional centres that have applied on the program. We funded their projects.
We want to continue to support those projects because they do have employment, they do create employment as well as training, but we have taken a new focus now. We heard from Members that we want to make sure that this fund is directed to small communities, and we will work with the Rural and Remote Committee as well as our community leaders, Aboriginal governments, businesses, on how we roll out this fund for the remainder of this fiscal year.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
