Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is a general question, and I figured now is as good of a time as any to ask it. So, you know, Members are provided in advance, you know, some pretty substantial project substantiation for all of these kinds of items. And my first question that came up when I was looking at those is why are the kind of more detailed substantiations not shared publicly? It seems like information that is not -- I mean, I can understand that specific numbers might need to be taken out for contract reasons, but is there a reason why the substantiations can't be made public...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess where I -- where I'm a bit confused is, you know, when I look at education outcomes, workforce planning, you know, let's focus on the Giant Mine project for a second. That project is only achieving 36 percent employment. This is a project that's going to be spending billions of dollars in the territory over a number of years. Why have we failed to maximize northern workforce in that project if all these plans are working so well? What's the missing piece, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate, again, the comprehensive answer from the Minister. I always appreciate these exchanges where we go back and forth like this and get these comprehensive answers on the table.

Regarding Pine Point, I'm glad she brought that one up because the Standing Committee on Economic and Development and Environment recently met with some representatives from Pine Point, and they were saying one of their big challenges is going to be finding employees to staff this mine, that we're simply not producing the numbers of trades people that they're going to need. So I guess...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, respectfully, I'm asking about workforce planning, not necessarily procurement. When we're looking at workforce planning for capital projects, so planning out how this project is going to be implemented in such a way and what needs to be done to ensure that there is a workforce to implement the project, a northern workforce, what analysis are we employing to help us plan to ensure we're maximizing northern employment? Sorry to repeat the question, Mr. Speaker, but I just felt that the answer was speaking more to procurement than employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the statement made by the -- do I need to worry about the clock here? Okay, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the statement made by the Minister on trades skill development. It jives well with the statement that I was going to make today on workforce development.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of projects in the budget which claim to support workforce development simply by being implemented. It will require people to build and operate; therefore, we are building our workforce. But is this really part of a strategically-thought...

That's it for this round. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Yeah, I guess to get into some more specific questions, I would encourage the Minister -- I mean, I prefer making information public as much as possible. It helps the public do their own scrutiny. Even if they don't read it, the information's out there. And I think that substantiations are important for helping them understand why Members may make the decisions the way they make, why Members may not oppose projects, but it's a little bit hard to say when all you have is the name of the project and nothing more to go on. So I would always encourage transparency where possible and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, does the Department of ECE or ITI have stated goals for workforce -- increasing the northern workforce in the territory? Have they set a number that they're trying to achieve either at the diamond mines, Giant, through northern -- through our contracting? Are they looking to achieve a goal?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the answers I got earlier from the Minister of ECE and note that she just kind of finished on the point she needs support from industry. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about what we are doing.

Mr. Speaker, let's connect the dots. Education outcomes, will the Minister speak to the education outcomes and how that's relating to our inability to sufficiently provide a workforce for industry in the territory? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a much more comprehensive answer and more along the lines of what I was looking for.

Mr. Speaker, considering these plans that we have in place across sectors, why aren't we making more progress or increasing northern employment figures at the diamond mines, projects like Giant Mine, or even GNWT contracted projects? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.