Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, as I was explaining in my Member's statement, of the 38 current SNAP students in the Northwest Territories, many of those students are located here in Yellowknife, or what is referred to as the North Slave, and only four are located outside of the Yellowknife region. And so I'm wondering what has been the barrier to ensuring that there is a SNAP student in every NWT community or at least regional centre, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And just to correct the record, there are 24 SNAP students in the territory and 14 SNAP apprentices. After a student graduates from being a SNAP student, they can become an actual apprentice in the SNAP program. So some of the barriers are the fact that we only have so many employers and so many students in the territory. It is not always easy for employers and especially small employers to take on apprentices, although the government does provide funding for that. There are issues around and I'll say that we've had trouble attracting people in the trades for a while. And so that's part of the issue as well. You know, there's been a big push over the past few years to get more students in trades. And ECE has been doing their part. The SNAP program recently got a revamp. There's been new guidelines and handbooks. There's been additional outreach. So we are trying to there are barriers and we are doing our best to break them down, and we've seen those numbers increase due to those efforts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I absolutely hear the Minister that there are only so many employers in the Northwest Territories willing or able to take on this work and that it is a significant investment to be able to take on a high school student in this kind of capacity. One of the things that the Minister has at his disposal is an entire government, which is one of the largest employers in the territory and actually employs red seal apprentices and skilled trades people in multiple regions across the territory; in fact, Mr. Speaker, in all the regions across the Northwest Territories. And so what I'm asking is for the GNWT to actually recognize itself as one of the employers that can take on SNAP students and apprentices thank you, Minister, for correcting my terminology there. So is ECE willing to commit to ensuring that a youth from every NWT community, or at least region, is enrolled in the SNAP program before the end of the 19th Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A lot of assumptions in that statement there. One of the first assumptions was that I have the whole government at my disposal. And I wish that was the case but that is not the case. And the other assumption is that I can make something like this happen. The fact is that we need students and we need employers to get together and work on this. And we are making efforts. There have been advances in the past few years; we've seen the numbers increase. And we are now working as a government to explore how we can get SNAP students into employment with the Government of the Northwest Territories and working with my colleague from the Department of Infrastructure. The Department of Finance is involved because, you know, hiring, it needs to conform to the collective agreement. So we are taking an allofgovernment approach to this and I'm happy to see it's invigorating. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if we were taking an allofgovernment approach to this, we would see summer students in every region outside of including outside of Yellowknife. We would see SNAP students and SNAP apprentices in every region. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of those opportunities are often seen being taken advantage of solely or predominantly by students in Yellowknife. And I get that there's more population here. I absolutely get that. I get that there's more that there are more students here, that there are more employers here; I absolutely understand that. And I get that the Minister also can't force the government to do anything. But an example as housing, who is willing to put an apprentice in their contracts, there are departments out there willing to partake in these opportunities. And so I'm asking the Minister if he will especially work with Ministers of Infrastructure and Housing to tell them about the SNAP program because yesterday I heard in housing, in an exchange between a Member and the Minister, that they wished there was an opportunity before the apprenticeship program. This is it, Mr. Speaker. So I'm asking if the GNWT will be one of its own clients and partake in the SNAP program? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, that work is underway. As I stated, the Department of Infrastructure is actually looking at a couple students in different regions to take them on as SNAP students. So that work is happening. And, again, I'll say that when I came into this role I really did start pushing apprenticeships. Not that the department wasn't pushing them before but it really was one of my focuses. And, you know, we've seen more efforts gone into this area and we're continuing to see that. You can see it through the collaboration between ECE, the Department of Infrastructure, and other government bodies as we try to get more SNAP students. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final short supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that commitment from the Minister. I think this is an excellent program and a really big opportunity for northern students.
One of the things that I also mentioned today in my questions was summer students. Summer is coming. Now is the time where summer students are hired. And I would also like to see an effort on the part of the GNWT to also make sure that summer students are being hired across the Northwest Territories. And so will the Minister of education also commit to talking to his colleagues about ways to make that happen? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Summer students falls under the I guess the purview of the Department of Finance. That's generally where those types of questions go. Nonetheless, I'm happy to promote the idea of hiring students to my Cabinet colleagues, and I'll do that wholeheartedly. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
