Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Will the Minister advise me if they will be running the Schools North Apprenticeship Program, referred to as the SNAP program, in my community this year? If not, why, and will his department reconsider? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The SNAP program, as the Member mentioned, the Schools North Apprenticeship Program, doesn't run on a schedule. It is not a regular part of the curriculum. There is no scheduled start time right now. The program requires a significant number of parties to all come together. You need employers; you need the school; you need students, parents, and ECE to ensure that things run smoothly.
If there is an interest from employers and there is an interest from students, then this is something that we can facilitate, and we can use this program. I will speak to the department to explore some further options. We have our career and education advisors who might be able to help facilitate this, but the first thing that we need is to have some participants who are willing to help us move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In my Member's statement, I also talked about the trades trailers that are in my community that have been sitting there. Will the Minster advise me what the plan from the department is to continue to work with the Indigenous governments in my community to ensure that these trailers are being utilized for the purpose that they were purchased for?
Aurora College offers trades, industrial, and occupational training in the trades mobile training lab. This lab is a state-of-the-art facility. I think it is pretty cool, basically. We are always open to having these discussions with Indigenous governments. In 2019, December, the lab returned to Inuvik from Tuktoyaktuk after offering the Building Trades Helper Program.
There are ongoing discussions about how we can better use this lab in the Beaufort-Delta for things such as trade preparation, entry-level programs for youth to enhance employment skills, and the Building Trades Helper Program. As the transformation of Aurora College into a polytechnic continues, there are going to be even more opportunities to utilize this tool.
Thank you to the Minister for that. I look forward to the ongoing work in that area. Will the Minister ensure that small businesses that have apprentices and utilize the on-the-job funding to support them to keep the apprentice until they reach their journeyman certificate?
My colleague is speaking about the trades and occupations wage subsidy program in which the department tops off the wages for apprentices for a couple years. She noted that it doesn't necessarily follow the apprentice all the way through. That is because the pot of money just isn't big enough to do that. We can't cover everyone.
I am looking forward, in this Assembly, to increasing the number of apprentices and journeypeople that we have in the territory. If this is something that we think is useful and a way to do that, then I look forward to having those budget discussions with Cabinet and with the Regular Members and seeing if that is where we want to allocate our limited resources.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Just one last thing: would the Minister, since I am pretty sure SFA falls under the Minister's department, if they could look at maybe a way that that would help apprentices continue on and maybe support them in that area? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
SFA is for students who are studying. I don't know if that is an appropriate avenue to provide funds to somebody who is working as an apprentice, but I have been speaking for years about the need to get more apprentices in the territory. We have so many journeypeople who are retiring, who have retired. Like the rest of Canada, we just do not have the people to replace them. I am hopeful and committed to increasing that number during the life of this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
