Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My next question was -- she just answered that. So how many residents from Fort Providence, Enterprise, and Kakisa currently access these services?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's my understanding that the data we do have, we'll have to go back to get specifics to her community if we have it. We might have it wrapped up in a regional, but I can get back to the Member on the four communities that she serves. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from the Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had to reword the question. So which communities offer these services, and if the ones that don't have, like, the services right in the community, like Kakisa, can medical travel cover their travel to access these services? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, from my understanding, in those communities, that they can contact by phone, the services. I will have to get back to the Member on, you know, if there is possibility of them leaving or if there is a counsellor that travels into those communities. The level of detail that I have on hand, I don't have that information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Premier's office, obviously the executive. And the Premier's away; I'll ask the Deputy Premier.
I'm not sure, Mr. Speaker, what level we are involved with Op Nanook as a government, but I'd like to ask the Deputy Premier if she can provide some information around the details with our ongoing engagement with Ottawa around the military spending in the High Arctic. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Boot Lake. Madam Deputy Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, while Project Nanook is definitely one that centers on the department of defence and RJTFN, I can say that one of its aims is to help develop the interagency Crown Indigenous multinational partnerships intraoperabilities, so it is an opportunity for us to demonstrate our ability to work collaboratively at different levels and different degrees of government. And in that regard, Mr. Speaker, certainly, I'm confidently able to say the Premier does continue to speak regularly in the media, in the territorial address here, with respect to the work that's happening on engagement around military spending, military involvement in the Northwest Territories, and that this is being done, of course, with partnerships throughout departments and looking to Indigenous governments as well. Thank you.
It's going to be a long day, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. Does the Premier's office have dedicated staff that engage and prioritize Arctic security within the Department of the Executive? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, there's not a full-time dedicated position per se but, Mr. Speaker, the interagency engagement between the Premier's office and the federal government, that is a large part of the core work that happens at executive and Indigenous affairs, certainly on the executive side, so if you're in that department, I'm quite confident in saying, and believe I'm well placed to say so with the information I do have, that this is not a concern to the department, that they're confident that they are able to actively engage, and I do happen to know from the role that I'm in, Mr. Speaker, having made my own inquiries of late, that the deputy minister of EIA actually has just quite recently been involved and engaged with the deputy minister of Department of National Defence so those conversations are live and recent. Thank you.
Thank you, madam Deputy Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Deputy Premier, and thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given the heightened lens on Arctic security and sovereignty, given that Yukon has an Arctic security council now, and I know I believe we were invited to join that possibly -- and I wouldn't recommend we do. I recommend we start our own. So I guess what I'm looking for of the Premier's office is a commitment to report back to committee on those engagements on Arctic security and committing to researching -- setting up our own security council here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I understand the Premier has, in fact, offered to meet with committee to discuss in more depth the current -- I mean, obviously, currently in Washington, much is happening in the space related to sovereignty, and it would probably be a good place at that opportunity to discuss what a future opportunity might look like, and I will leave that to the other parties and to the Premier to complete that discussion. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Premier. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I noted in my Member's statement today about the income support program and how it provides the basic programs support and it does just very that, like exactly that, the basics. But I also cited concerns about the fact that it's not designed to empower individuals to not only stabilize but to get ahead and get back on their feet and back being productive members in their own way, whatever that's defined as, as productive members back into society.
Mr. Speaker, what can the Minister do to help change that attitude, perspective, and I'd say modus operandi, of the income assistance system to help empower people to get back on their feet, to get engaged in work, get into counselling, and get ahead. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is a great question from the Member, and I want to warn you that the answer is not very straightforward. So I'm going to start there, sorry.
Mr. Speaker, Education, Culture and Employment, through income assistance, does have client navigators. Those client navigators hold the role not only of assessing the basic needs of a client, as the Member said, of a resident, but they also can refer people to things like income assistance, career development officers, business development officers, etcetera. And some of the programs that the career development officers have at their fingertips in ECE which, by way, is right across the hallway here at headquarters, of everybody has access to, are things like the skills development program which is financial supports to help people participate in programming to upgrade or develop in essential employability skills. This is $26,000 for up to 52 weeks. There is also student financial assistance. There's the wage subsidy program which funds employers to hire NWT residents with minimal work experience or education by offsetting the cost of hiring and training. This, Mr. Speaker, is up to $30,000 in wage subsidies plus $500 in special equipment costs. And then there's also the community training partnerships, and this empowers organizations to access financial support to deliver local activities aimed for the community to increase skill development, including workplace essential skills. And then there's also our wage subsidy programs, Mr. Speaker. So we do have a host of programs to support just exactly what the Member is speaking to. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister capturing the whole ECE budget, and I'm not sure there was a page left unspoken about. My question was nowhere near about any of -- most of that. I wouldn't say all of it, but I will say most of it. My question is really about the income support program specifically targeting to help individuals get through the system. They are data entry folks, not social workers. I've used the generic phrase navigator. Perhaps that's my fault, and I acknowledge that. Essentially I'm trying to say is what type of support does the income assistance offices, the clients who work with the people day-to-day, work to empower individuals to get them back regularly into the workforce, day-to-day process of living life and contributing? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is right; they're not social workers but they do a very good job at the work that they do and they're very committed to the work that they do. They are committed to making sure that they let residents know what opportunities there are because there are other people in communities and other people within departments who do have things like access to the programs that I spoke about and who also have access to different workshops that are happening in communities. So, for example, Prosper NWT has delivered workshops to over 150 people last year. So there are numerous things happening in communities. And what some of these programs that I'm talking about also highlight is that there's other opportunities that are able to happen. But none of this work happens in a vacuum or with one person or even with the GNWT only. It really is all of community, and so that's why I really appreciated the Member bringing that up, is because it allowed me to highlight some of these programs that really are part of our success story. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, again, perhaps it's a bad question in the sense of I'm not focusing in enough because what I'm finding is the income support workers -- at least we agree that they're not social workers. But, you know, it's not a system that encourages in a manner of making it part of the program to get them to seek counselling, get them to go to job fairs, get them to show productive choices. It's literally show up, drop your paperwork, and then you qualify. I'm saying let's turn that around by making it part of the income support or income assistance program that they must be involved in engagement because I find that people once they get into income support, they tend to have an extremely difficult time getting out of it. And I'm seeing nods around the room, Mr. Speaker. That's the type of counselling, social work, support network needs to be part of the program, not a good suggestion. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, some of the changes that were made in the last term, one of them was the removal of productive choices because it was found that people were often doing the same type of productive choice over and over again and wasn't necessarily leading to something that was helping people at the end of the day achieve their employment or education goals.
One of the changes, however, that was made was the ability of people to keep more earned income, encouraging people to go and pursue additional opportunities, but certainly prepared to have more conversations with members about productive choices or a variation of that and the future of income assistance programs in the territory. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Colleagues, I'm going to reiterate, I don't want preambles to go long, and I don't want your answers to go long. I understand these questions are important to both sides. Can we please be more succinct with your questions and that moving forward. Thank you.
Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, since I've asked my questions about day home operators, I've had some day home operators reach out to me. So they're wondering what numbers are being used to justify the assertion that day home operators earn higher income -- or higher aftertax income because they don't feel that way. So what numbers is the department using to come to this conclusion? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Mr. Speaker, I don't have that information on hand and could not confirm that for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister work with day home operators through -- the department knows who they all are if they're registered day home operators -- to understand this concern more? Because it seems like there's a disconnect between the department and these operators. Thank you.
Absolutely committed to working with day home operators.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. We're making good progress. Mr. Speaker, so finally, just on the training side, the training required for day home operators, the 55 hours, it's on a screen, it's a virtual program. That's hard for some people with different needs. There's no English -- or non-English language support or ESL supports in place. Can the Minister commit to working with those operators who have those disadvantage -- or those different abilities and work with them to find a better way to do this so they're not at a disadvantage in completing this course work? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ECE is certainly open to providing any additional supports that people need. This would be done on a case-by-case basis. ECE has not received any type of request at this point, and if people have a situation where they need additional supports I encourage them to reach out by emailing earlylearning@gov.nt.ca.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions now are for the Minister of MACA, Municipal and Community Affairs -- don't want to leave him out. One of the main initiatives identified by this government in business plans is civic addressing. And I understand that work is underway to assign civic addresses in small communities that don't have them, but my question is what is the plan to provide standardized addresses for the more than 400 residents living in unincorporated areas throughout the NWT, like along highways, including all of the residents living out on the Ingraham Trail east of Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Honoured to be here. I just wanted to say so with the incorporated areas that we have within the territories, of course it's hard to apply civic addresses. We are working with communities to do civic addresses; however, with the unincorporated areas there are some struggles, and there's some discussions happening amongst agencies. I know some of the addressing that's being used right now currently is kilometer markings on the highway system, and that's pretty common throughout the Northwest Territories. So currently, we don't have anything set for the area that the Member's speaking of, but there is discussion that is going on in the background to try to figure something out that would be something that could be used amongst all the agencies that are requiring them, like emergency services or the actual location themselves like those on the Ingraham Trail. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister acknowledging that this is needed for things like emergency services. Even, you know, deliveries of things like fuel, it becomes a huge problem when you can't specify where they're supposed to go. So I wasn't clear from that answer, is there a commitment from this government to address civic addressing for unincorporated residences? It sounds like there's discussions, but is there a commitment to figure it out by the end of this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we all know how we don't like commitments but I will work with the Member to see how we can -- to pursue with this. And I think it is an important issue, especially when you're dealing with emergency services. So I know there is conversations happening in the background; however, I don't know exactly where those are at. But I am willing to work with the Member and see what we can do for areas like those on the Ingraham Trail. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that, and I would flag too that there have been attempts in the past to put standardized addressing in place on the Ingraham Trail but there's been different systems that are now obsolete; it's almost worse than not having anything at all. So I appreciate that the Minister is committing to work on it. And I guess what I'm asking for is if the Minister could commit to join me meeting with constituents on the Ingraham Trail, this summer perhaps, to look at past systems and what their recommendations are for future systems that could work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
That is a very easy commitment for me, and I will say yes. But I would also add that there is some issues with just throwing out civic addressing. We do have other agencies we have to work with. And I know there's potentially some solutions out there so it's something we could probably, you know, have worked on pretty soon. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we heard in the House, I believe yesterday, that the Minister said that if the sup passes and the budget passes, we will be $3.2 million away from our debt wall if I heard her correctly and, of course, that is if I have my math correct. Mr. Speaker, that actually puts us at 99.8 percent of our overall debt limit. I'm asking the Minister of Finance: what is she doing to find new ways to operate budget -- sorry, operate the fiscal management of the Assembly and the territory at large that we can find ways to save money immediately such as let people work from home and other types of innovative ideas that can save the government money? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the Assembly, the Assembly, of course, is managed by the board of management so I'll leave that to the operations of the board of management. With respect, more broadly, to the GNWT, Mr. Speaker, we certainly are -- of course that's why we introduced Restoring Balance as being an overarching strategy, fiscal strategy, for the government that would look for ways to reduce all expenditures and increase revenues.
Mr. Speaker, we did -- with respect to coming into the end of this fiscal year, we did ask the departments to consider carefully what kind of cash management and cash situation they have.
There is, of course, a difference, Mr. Speaker, between the total debt limit that we might be -- that we have and actually going near that on any given day. So perhaps I'll leave it there, Mr. Speaker. There's two more questions. I'll see what comes next. Thank you.
