Minister of ECE.
Thank you. Part of the work to transform the college is ensuring that there is a funding formula in place so that these types of programs are costed. Right now that isn't in place although there is a budget for the programs, and it's the same budget that has existed since the programs were in existence. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you. Do we know where on which of the three campuses each of those programs is planning to be located? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So with a new board of governors in place, they will be making those types of decisions along with the college administration. So I know that Members have been accustomed to asking those questions of the Minister but with the change in relationship and with the establishment of the board, things are going to operate differently now. So I can't comment on future decisions of the board. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you. I know right now the nursing program in Yellowknife is, you know, by most measures a success. I know many of the people who have taken that program or are taking it presently. But I believe there's some limitations on the space to expand that program, especially in the housing. I've heard from people that, you know, didn't get into that program or chose not to take that program because they couldn't get student housing. So, you know, even in the world where Yellowknife gets another program, I'm not convinced its current space requirements will allow that, especially on the housing front. Before we give all of the decisions to this board, are there any plans to kind of increase the space needs in Yellowknife? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So this House did pass the amendments to the Aurora College Act, so that decision has been made. So we're past the before part. But as the Member's aware, we have a facilities master plan that sets out, you know, potential infrastructure investments and the college and the government are well aware of the space limitations, and along with the residents in Fort Smith, addressing those limitations are the top priorities for new infrastructure for the college. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to switch gears a bit on the trades front. What I've been seeing lately is a lot of great announcements coming out of the federal government and directly to Indigenous governments. You know, I think we saw the Tlicho get, I believe, it was 30 apprentices paid for. I know Fort Good Hope has some federal funding to build a trades centre, which is all great work. There's other examples going on. I'm just hoping the Minister can speak to the extent we are kind of aware of that tracking it or offering partnership. I think, you know, the Fort Good Hope, for example we committee met with them, and it seems clear they will need some sort of apprentice building support and perhaps we have to tailor our programs to build that cooperation. I'm just wondering if the Minister can speak to whether we're kind of aware of this and reaching out as more and more of that federal money goes directly to Indigenous governments. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So we have, as I stated earlier, career development officers in the different regions of the Northwest Territories, and they are attuned to what is happening in their regions. There are often if not formalized relationships at least informal relationships among the different organizations, so Indigenous governments, ECE, businesses. And so I can say that, yes, the department is aware and always open to working whichever way works best for everyone involved. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to just talk a little bit actually a lot of my colleagues have asked some of my questions already, and I appreciate the information. But I always have to get a plug in for Skills Canada. Their funding has stayed fairly stagnant over the last while. And, really, for my own personal history and experience with the program, it's a really, really good program. We do well at it, I think, and as far as the competition piece when we send people. I'm sure there's other pots of funding; however, during the pandemic, it was very difficult for them to sort of continue on and there was a discussion around sort of pivoting to more virtual types of sort of trade programs or training. And so I'm just curious to know, like to me, I think this is a great place where with we can invest a lot of money. It's a lot of young people. So I think the youth gravitate more towards it than maybe some of the other types of funding or programs we have.
So can the Minister speak about whether or not we're going to fund Skills Canada NWT a bit more, how are we going to transition or help them transition to a more or an ability to be more virtual and reach more community members? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. And so we do have the $70,000 in here. On the line item, there's another $85,000 the department contributes out of the Labour Market Development Agreement. Perhaps I can hand it to the deputy minister for some more succinct comments on the Member's question. Thank you.
Deputy minister MacDonald.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And the Minister's numbers are correct. Those are funding contributions from ECE. Their primary funder is Employment and Social Development Canada so that's where they tend to get most of their revenue. But they may be able to fund other partnerships with individual education bodies across the territory as that's their direct link into schools. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And, you know, I understand that the federal government has its own sort of relationships with different organizations but as the Minister's aware, and I've recently become aware, you know, with the way that the federal government awards its funding at times there's often a lag in that funding, or if they decide to delay the announcement, and with so many of our NGOs operating on very shoestring budgets and, you know, sort of I want to where residents are living paycheque to paycheque but NGOs are living project funding to project funding, and it's not sustainable; we talk about it a lot. So is there a plan in place then or I guess is there a review maybe going on of some of these NGOs that are offering the programming for the department, or we're funding, to see and ensure that they have financial stability in planning so that they're not dependent on every month or every couple months waiting for a big project to get announced that has very specific ways of dictating how it's spent? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. And we're always happy to move to multiyear funding agreements whenever we can. I understand the Member's concerns. I know that NGOs don't have the bridge funding that governments have. The federal funding received by Skills Canada is a little less volatile than some of the other pots, but I'm sure there are instances where they run into issues. We're always happy to meet with Skills Canada if they you know, if they have a proposal, if they want to request more funds, I mean we can have those discussions, so I'm definitely always open to that. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you. And I play soccer so if I ever get back to that with one of the people that work there, I will let them know that they should maybe schedule a meeting with the Minister and have a chat.
You know, I look at some of these line items and I recognize that there's been some influx of money, as mentioned to my colleague, for the Aurora College; however, given that we had the recent conversation with Giant Mine and the different proponents, I won't rehash all of that but, you know, I think this is an area where it's a good place again to get money, training, skills, and capacity into the communities outside of Yellowknife. And so I guess I just want to ask the Minister are we going to to me, this seems like an area we need some significant investments in. And is there a plan to start bringing more money here and really developing some of these programs instead of having them just be these little, sort of oneoffs that offer a training course here and there? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. And, yes, we do receive significant funds from the federal government, and they provide those funds to all the provinces and territories and I am currently working with the other ministers of the provinces and territories to begin the negotiations of the future agreements. And I can say that we are putting a lot of effort into that. There are meetings coming up this spring or summer, and we are everyone is united in the call for more funding because everyone recognizes the labour shortage, the need for skilled labour, and especially the type of skilled labour we support through this. So hopefully in the next year or the year after, we have we'll see some bumps in these line items. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I also hope that we will be seeing bumps in these line items.
I think another piece that I became live to as an engineer and to my statement, when I was consulting, is really the lack of the intermediate age group in many professions. So in Canada with the Baby Boomers starting to retire, we have, you know, younger people coming in, but we're really missing that intermediate senior level of professional which we can see by all of the, you know, vacancies that we're looking for in the various industries.
So I guess with that in mind, how does the department help with sort of that broader succession planning, I guess for lack of a better way to call it, through some of our trade and industries? I hear the Minister mentioning that it's tough to find those trainers that have the actual skill sets. So what is the department doing to be creative to, like, ensure that we are going to have people at all levels of experience and training and ability to continue training them in the future? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. And as everyone's aware, over the past few years it's become very evident that, you know, the labour shortage that they've warned us about for years with Baby Boomers retiring, it's happening now. And we can no longer just continue doing the things the way we've done it for decades, really, because the market has changed so significantly. So we are looking at collecting data, looking at labour market trends, looking at demographics, so we can be creative, so we can get a handle on the situation and how we might be able to address it, so. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Anyways, I'm just in regards to Aurora College, I'm just looking under the organization structure. So under the structure, you have the Education Act that more or less created the Department of Education, Culture and Employment office. And then under that office, then you have regional DEAs and they have their own boards and there's agreements in place and they administer their own education at the local level, etcetera. So then in terms of communications, so mostly like the chairman of those DEAs will respond or report to the Minister or vice versa type of thing. So I need clarification on that because I'm assuming that's on that part. But in regards to Aurora College, now that they have their own Education Act, how does that Education Act fall under? Does that fall under the Education Act? Is that under that Act, or does that give way to create Aurora College sorry, Aurora College Act? I just need you to help clarify that.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. And so we have a few pieces of legislation that are fundamental to the education system in the Northwest Territories. We have the Education Act, which is primarily focused on JK to 12, but there is some it does reach out to postsecondary and other areas. We now have the PostSecondary Education Act, which is something we have not had before, and it is the a ct that really regulates postsecondary education in the Northwest Territories. And other jurisdictions have it as well. We are the regulators of that sector. And then we have the Aurora College Act, which we recently amended to provide or to make the college truly arm's length. So that's the situation there. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chairman. And thank you, Minister, for that clarification. So essentially, so the chairman for the Aurora College now will be communicating with you and the office vice versa so it's no different than the regional DEAs and chairmans etcetera. So having said that though, as you know, in the Northwest Territories and from our experience and it's coming up in a lot of meetings I attended, even when I was a chief and attending the Tlicho assemblies, the Dene Nation assemblies, the AFN assemblies, etcetera, even at the national level, there's always been a big gap in education. Even though we get people that graduate from high school, you know, there are huge gaps. You know, they or I think my colleague talks about passive passing the guys along without just the without action of diploma, etcetera. So there's a big gap in education. So even though they got grade 12 and we let them out the door, technically they're in grade 10 or grade 9 level. So, you know, we know that's a problem in our communities, and I think you explained it in the past what are the problems are too as well because I heard it from the House.
Having said that though, Madam Chair, is that in the community in Lutselk'e, we have a problem there too as well because we have a position called community learning support coordinator, and that position hasn't been filled. So usually if you had somebody like that in the community, these are the people that really do the legwork at the local level to help bridge that gap of the students that are falling through the cracks and actually want to bring their levels up so they can go into trades, colleges and universities, etcetera.
So I just want to know if there's a way we could get that filled right away because I understand that there was a problem where, you know, a position was identified sorry, not position but somebody applied on that position, the position was ready to be filled, and all of a sudden there's an issue on housing. I just want to know it's been almost well, I guess June of last year it's been sitting empty but yet our students, our community, really need help. And so I just want to see what we can do to get that position filled right away and so that we could continue to bridge that gap. I think our colleague over here said they were going to build a bridge for us. So if we could do that, I think that would be great. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'll address a few things here.
So the relationship with the college board will be between the Minister and the chair, as the Member stated. The college is actually going to be more autonomous than education bodies so it's a bit of a different relationship, but that's how it will work.
We are looking at a new program, or exploring the possibility of a new program, to work with adults, you know, who they've gone through the JK to 12 system and maybe they don't have the skills that they need to move on to trades or postsecondary. And that is a that's a group a segment of the population that perhaps could be in the workforce but just needs a bit more support to get there. So we are focusing on that to address some of the Member's concerns. We also made the changes to the student financial assistance so that if a student needs more semesters or we're proposing to make them. So if a student needs more semesters, they can do that as well. And I'm sorry if I missed anything but I'll hand it over. Thanks.
Thank you. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you for that, Madam Chairman. I guess the Minister maybe could convey my issue or concerns to the president of the Aurora College and let them know that if we could get this position filled right away, and it's important that and, again, the people in the community in my riding are saying that well, you know, geesh, we got issues in education, concerns, etcetera, but they don't know who to call. They're phoning me and saying well, when's the position going to be filled, etcetera. So if I could get you to maybe communicate that to the Department of Aurora College and their people and maybe and also if you don't mind getting back to me on that, a followup maybe on their next plan on that. Mahsi.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. And the Member has raised the position in Lutselk'e with me, and I've committed to convey that either through the department to the college, because we do still have a relationship at the officials level as we work through the transformation. But it's also I can it's also something that I can raise with the new chair once they are instated. So I can't staff those positions. I'm legally barred from interfering with the operations of the college but when an MLA brings concerns, I bring those concerns to the college. Thank you.
Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I want to thank the Minister for paying a visit to the future headquarters of the polytechnic university in Fort Smith in January. It was a really incredible visit. It was on it was a very cold day that day. And we went to each classroom, and all the trades were in session. And, you know, as I went through the building, I did not realize myself how important it is to hire local. M ostly all the trades are done by local the training is done by local Indigenous personnel who care for these students in a really incredible way. And even the trades head, the head of trades, is a local boy, Duane Macdonald, you know. And as we went through the building, it was very inviting. They were happy to see the Minister on such a personal basis. And I'm very proud to say that, you know, it'll be nice to fill all the other classrooms in that building, because it hasn't been filled since before the pandemic. And, you know, one of the things that I wanted to ask was the how many accredited apprenticeships still go south for their training because, you know, there's there was a lot of people there, and all those classrooms were all filled. And we have some unique courses there right now. One of them is the new aviation program. And the other one, of course, is the one that there's only one school in Canada for NAFTA, and it's in the Fort Smith campus. Those are really specialized areas.
And the only thing that I wanted to mention is that, you know, I want to make sure that we are supporting our own apprenticeships to go to the Fort Smith campus and not sending them to NAIT anymore. I wonder how we can achieve that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you. So if someone needs to or wants to take their apprenticeship courses and they're offered at the college, we will support them to go to the college. If they would like to take a program that's not offered by the college, then we'll support them to go elsewhere. But, you know, if they would just prefer to go to somewhere in Alberta for a program that is being offered at the college, we unless there is a I mean, there may be exceptions but generally the rule is that if a program is offered at the college, we support them to go to the college only. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
On page 60, where it has the labour development and advanced education active positions, under headquarters and North Slave, which those two should be together. You know, they're always I don't know who separates these but there's 33 positions there, and the rest is 26. So I'm just wondering, you know, you have an increase of four positions in headquarters and another three in North Slave. Can you tell me what those positions are? Thank you, Madam Chair.
