Thank you, Madam Chair. So there are 54 designated trades and 25 occupations that are laid out in some of the orders attached to the legislation. And the budgets, in this case the trades and occupations wage subsidy program, can fund either/or however I would state that predominantly the budget is spent on trades and not occupations. And that's just how things historically have operated. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'd ask the Minister if the program is actually fully subscribed? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I don't believe so. Perhaps Mr. Saturnino can provide some of the break down on the numbers. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Saturnino.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Over the past few years, it has not been fully subscribed. However, we've recently made changes at the end of January to expand the program to support more apprentices, so opening it up to third and fourth year apprentices and also providing additional support for women in trades. And with those changes, we're hoping that the program will now be fully subscribed. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So, you know, since you opened it up, what's the uptake been with the third and fourth and women in trade? Do you have any numbers or anything that you can provide us with? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. I'll ask the deputy minister to answer.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As of now, that change that data would be a little bit too new to be able to report. That change was only announced in January. But in terms of the current breakdown, there are 298 registered apprentices in the territory. Of these, 44 percent are Indigenous and 6 percent are women. So that 6 percent is what that change to the program is meant to address, to try to increase that percentage. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And communicating I guess these changes to the, you know, to businesses and people that may be interested in the trades or occupations, how is that achieved? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. For some of the details, I'd like to hand it to Mr. Saturnino.
Thank you. Mr. Saturnino.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We did put out a news release at the end of January. In addition to that, we would use most of the normal communication tactics that the GNWT uses, so which would include advertising, website, social media. We also are communicating that directly to employers and making them aware through that way. And for those employers that currently employ women in trades where the subsidy was increased, we're following up directly with them to make them aware that the subsidy has changed and making the changes and providing them with additional support. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Is any of this communicated to the schools? Because, you know, we are talking about trades, I guess to say specifically, just to give an option to people instead of going postsecondary route? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. With the current education advisers that are quite recent positions at ECE, they have been communicating this type of information with schools. We have some people on that team that have trades experience, and they've really been champions of this.
We now have I believe nine positions, and the majority have been moved out into the regions. Their work has been hindered by COVID and the inability to really, you know, meet facetoface with a lot of students. But there is definitely a push to get exactly this type of information and tradesrelated information out to students so that as they are planning out their careers, starting with their school career, they have some guidance and some direction and they know how to get where they want to go. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm pleased to see that, you know, that this is expanded to third and fourth years and also to women in trades. I think, you know, it's so important with the amount of work and the houses that we need in the territories and other things as well. So, you know, what I'm hoping is that, you know, if this this line item, if it's fully subscribed now and, you know, I'd look to like, I'd like to see us throw more money at it at some point and really push it because it's meaningful to people in the Northwest Territories.
The next point here is I just want to go to the workforce development agreement, and I just ask the Minister maybe give me an idea of what that really is and, you know, it's grants so, you know, subscription to it, you know, how many businesses or individuals or whatever were looking at it? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a large list of recipients here. So perhaps for a more comprehensible breakdown, I'll ask Mr. Saturnino to speak to it.
Thank you. Mr. Saturnino.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The workforce development agreement provides supports. We have actually a suite of eight programs that are available, a couple of them for individuals to do skills development and selfemployment, a few to employers for wage subsidies and training, and some larger initiatives for community organizations to do larger community training projects. In 20212022, and understanding that we have the workforce development agreement and we also have the labour market development agreement, which is a separate agreement, collectively those programs provided a direct support, financial support, to 317 individuals and employers. And we also supported 1300 program interventions for clients through our third party funding contributions. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Line item literacy funding, one thing I, you know, that I noticed, you know, being in business is that you do get a number of people that, you know, that can't read or write that well. And one thing we tried to do was, you know, to provide them with a few hours a day or a week to, you know, and pay them for that, to and to take some courses or have somebody tutor them. And there's always a cost associated with that. Is that something the department provides funding for above the wage and occupation subsidies? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. That may be something that the workforce development agreement could help out with but I'm really not sure so I'll ask Mr. MacDonald. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So when it comes to literacy funding, ECE generally tends to utilize that through contribution agreements to third party partners. So there are an array of those across the territory. I'll use the literacy council has an example.
So sometimes that funding is for delivery of or development of resource for literacy. Sometimes it's for delivery of training, things of that nature. So there are a host of different ways in which we utilize those dollars. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one quick question, and it is I'd like to know I guess what the uptake is in the communities outside Yellowknife in like the trades and occupation wage subsidies and workforce development versus I guess in Yellowknife? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. There's a pretty good uptake across the territory. I'm not sure if there's a regional breakdown that departmental officials might have. I'll send it to Mr. MacDonald. Thank you.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.
Okay, I'm just looking through my notes if you have a second.
Just provide that to us in writing, that's fine. Okay, thank you. Labour development and advanced education, Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple of questions for the Minister. One of them is about financial assistance to medical students.
Is there any financial assistance to medical students after four years? You know, because I had a constituent from Fort Smith who is going to be a surgeon, and she had a lot of problems in the last couple years getting financial assistance for graduating I mean, she's going to graduate but she had to get loans. And I just want to make sure that is there any program for our own students of Indigenous descent that decide to go to medical school and to advance to that level and this person is going to be trying to or will try to get a job at Stanton. That's her ideal situation. And so I'm just wondering, do you have they had those programs years ago because we used to hear about it but we don't hear much about that anymore so I'm just wondering, Madam Chair, if the Minister could answer that. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So after the 12 semesters of SFA, we have loans available and I know that there's also a number of scholarships available, and we compile a list of that. There's a significant amount of third party funding that people can access, especially once you get into things like medicine. And I know from experience that if you are pursuing a professional degree, the banks will also throw money at you in the form of lines of credit. And so you do have to pay that back but, you know, physicians, I mean, in the territory, make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And so if you actually, you know, complete that, those studies, I don't think that that would be a you know, too big of an issue. So we don't have it in our program but there is a number of other avenues, and some of those avenues you do have to pay back. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Further to that answer, I still feel that, you know, we pay a lot of money to locums that are not they're not guaranteed residents of the Northwest Territories. Every community does. And when we have someone who is of Indigenous descent and who is a Metis person and going in to be a I don't know if she she is going to graduate, with honors from the University of Saskatchewan, and is going to be a surgeon, and who's willing to come here, you're telling me that she has to go get lines of credits that are payable back and yet we're putting all these other students through school and you're not getting the surgeon or a doctor. And that kind of is we have to start thinking out of the box and look after the people, because we have such a shortage of doctors and nurses and anybody in the medical field. So I just want to see the Minister's opinion if he would consider it. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So the SFA program is you know, it provides basic funding for university students. You know, there could be instances where departments want to provide scholarships or bursaries to students, and that's done for different things. I know ECE provides additional bursaries for people going into certain or, you know, taking studying certain fields. But that's not something that SFA is doing at this point.
I mean, we could look into it but as the Member said, we need lots of doctors; we need nurses; we need trades people; we need teachers; we need virtually every profession here in the territory. So that's why we have such a large population of people who move up from the south and work for a few years and then head back down, and then someone else cycles up, because we really are lacking a lot of qualifications in the territory. So it's hard to say yes for this and perhaps no for other things, and I don't think that ECE is the department that should be doing that. It should be, you know if another department feels as though they need to boost a certain, you know, level of professions in the territory, then perhaps they can have some targeted measures to do that. But our program is more general in nature. I'm very sympathetic to what the Member's saying, we do need more doctors, but the program at this point is a general studies program. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
