Thank you. Member or Minister of ECE.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Very serious. I'm very passionate about this, this file, and like I said I think it's there's a lot of good work happening, work that wasn't happening, you know, just five years ago. A lot of strides have been made. For some of the details on the funding, I can ask the deputy minister to provide that. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So that, I think, is just an internal move from grants to contributions. So the total amount of funding allocated for Indigenous language revitalization would not have changed. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
One of our Madam Chair, at one of our government operations phonein shows, the whole issue of bonuses for knowing a second language or a second official language was brought up. I just want to hear the explanation if that includes all Indigenous languages or just the French language? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So I believe there is some sort of a GNWT policy on languages. I'm not I can't say I'm overly familiar with it. The issue that comes up through ECE is often Indigenous language instructors. There are Indigenous language instructors in the schools who might not have education degrees and so they are not paid at the same rate as teachers who have education degrees. And this is something that, you know, the department has brought forward on numerous times to the you know, to and has brought forward to Finance who has then brought forward to the negotiations with the union. So we are working on trying to ensure that Indigenous languages are valued the way that we believe they should be. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just for real clarity, the Indigenous language teachers at the elementary school and the high school in Fort Smith all have degrees from the teacher education program, and are they paid on par with the French teacher at those schools? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. Perhaps I'll send it to the deputy minister for that level of detail. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Luckily with the recent conclusion of collective bargaining with the Northwest Territories Teachers Association, so my what I think I believe the Minister is speaking about has been addressed. So, for example, there is a provision within the collective agreement for a language bonus for Indigenous language instructors. So that's been increased. I think it's a little over $6,000 per year now.
As well, in the table, the certification and the salary grid for teachers, the parties agreed to remove the initial step which was one year or less of experience. So Indigenous language instructors are now paid at two years or less, which brings them up a pay level, and brings them to be equal to other educators within the system with that level of experience and education. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
I don't have any other questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Are there any further questions under culture, heritage and languages? Oh yes, sorry, Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So I wanted to start off on the travel line item. I see that there was a slight decrease to travel for this item. I'm wondering who within this key activity is doing the most travel? And so with this travel, given what line items are here, would this be mostly interritory travel and why the decrease? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I can probably ask Mr. Shannon to explain the or Mr. MacDonald to explain the on the changes. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Minister mentioned in his opening remarks, ECE's contribution to the governmentwide travel reduction was a little over $400,000. In applying that reduction across the department, we looked at the various branches and divisions where staff conduct travel. So where there was previously a larger travel budget available, we made larger cuts commensurate to those organizations. So in this activity, the Indigenous language group would be providing travel support to Indigenous language communities as well as to education bodies for training and things of that nature. So that would be an example of where that would be reduced. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
So thank you very much, Madam Chair. So the cut then specifically would be interritory travel; I just want to confirm that? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you. There may be a possibility that there may have been some outofterritory travel under this budget. And if that was the case, that would be the first travel we would look at not doing. So we are prioritizing travel within the territory if we do travel. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you for the clarification from the Minister.
My next, I guess more of a comment first, is I see, and I note that one of my colleagues mentioned this already, was the significant increase to the Francophone Affairs Secretariat and that the Indigenous languages portion is still undergoing discussions with the federal government for contributions available for that. Is there a timeline associated with when the department expects to hear about that? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I'd ask Mr. MacDonald to answer. Thank you.
Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It's always a bit difficult predicting when we can conclude formal negotiations with the federal government but we're actually optimistic that we'll be able to complete this fiscal year. And as the Minister I think mentioned when responding to a previous question, we're looking for a threeyear extension to the existing Indigenous languages agreement. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the next thing that I wanted to talk about really quickly was the Indigenous languages broadcasting line item which is found on page 37. It's been a stagnant number for a number of years now at 878. And the reason I wanted to point this out is in looking at different ways that different areas or different areas of the world have been able to do language revitalization, one of the places that was able to have quite a lot of success was Hawaii, and they found about 50 years ago that they had lost quite a bit of language speakers and, through radio and television broadcasting, were able to increase their language speakers by nine times. And I thought that was really interesting. And so I'm wondering if there is an intent to increase this line item? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. In this current year, there is not an intent. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, one of the things that I think is really exciting is the opportunity for young kids to hear the languages that they're learning in schools or from family members on TV, on the radio and such. And so I'm wondering if there is a I know there's not a line increase this year. I'm wondering if there is intent to add to this line item or grow this line item in the future? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So there is Indigenous, you know, language programming on the radio, and it is much appreciated, and I know that we utilize it every time we need to get information out to Indigenous communities. But while this line item might be stagnant, the way that people can communicate has changed over the years. And so, you know, Facebook, YouTube, there are other ways that people now communicate and I'm not sure that, you know, a focus on radio is necessarily the way to go. That being said, I can ask the deputy minister if there's been any conversations in the department because I could be totally off base. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There are I should back up and say that a number of our initiatives under Indigenous languages all link back to our Indigenous languages strategy and action plan, which was built upon engagements with Indigenous governments and organizations and other partners. Those actions include funding for broadcasting societies for radio, community radio. Those are in different budget lines. And there are also funding that's provided to create regional resources, products, apps. They've been used for applications, you know, for phones and for tablets and so on and so forth. So there are various funding streams that allow for these types of innovative solutions. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm wondering if the Minister can and I know that this is slightly out of scope of the budget a little bit, but maybe not so much. I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to what kind of work the Indigenous Languages and Education Secretariat does with ITI as far as their film division and building Indigenous languages into films coming out of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I'll pass that to the deputy minister. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To be honest, not a huge amount of interdepartmental work on that issue has occurred in the past but it is an area of opportunity.
One of the things that the Indigenous Languages and Education Secretariat has done of late is establish a new committee across government with all departments. So Indigenous language coordinators in each department now have a form to meet regularly with ILE staff, share information, provide feedback on initiatives, and to move the needle forward in terms of the ability of departments and agencies to provide services. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Monfwi, did you have questions for this section?
Yeah. Here, Indigenous languages revitalizations, it says can you clarify that for us please; what does that mean? Because you said development towards Indigenous language diploma program, etcetera.
