R.J. Simpson

As far as I know, it hasn't been affected by COVID-19. It hasn't been put on hold. It is going forward full force, and it doesn't seem to be held up whatsoever. It's a solid program, and I think that the people who are participating in it genuinely enjoy it. The language speakers genuinely enjoy transferring their language. People enjoy learning it. I am hopeful that, for years to come, this is going to be a key part of our revitalization initiatives. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As for the GNWT, I don't believe that we have approached them. Perhaps other Indigenous governments have. I think that's an interesting idea. Just imagine if we could get nine Indigenous languages onto Google translate. That would be something. I look forward to following up with the Member on this one.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following three documents: "Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 4-19(2): Report on the Review of the 2018-2019 Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission Annual Report;" "Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 5-19(2): Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories;" and "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 559-19(2): FASD Support Services in NWT Correctional Facilities." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is still quite early in the process. Of course, we want to use the results of reviews to inform how we want to go forward. I think that it has been maybe six or seven years now that this program has been running in different forms. Still, a lot has been learned. I think we can see that there have been some issues with the program over the past few years. We have seen the length of it is a problem. It's probably not the best program to be run in the North. We will try and avoid those pitfalls. That being said, we want this to be community-driven and really empower local communities to come...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With all the talk about outhouses and A New Day program, it feels like I am back in the 18th Assembly. As the Member noted, the contract for A New Day program was a four-year contract that ends at the end of March. The Department of Justice will not be renewing that contract. The contractor has been informed of this. The plan is to transform the program into more of a community-driven model and making that money available on an application basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just saw the Member's questions earlier today, and I already started those conversations with the department to figure out if there is a way that we can get that information public.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are service standards that have been developed for the Employment Standards Office, and those relate to how long between making a complaint or an inquiry and receiving a call back. The length of time between a complaint being made and a decision is not something that has traditionally been tracked. There is a wide variety of factors that determine how long a complaint would take to finalize or come to a decision. There are complaints that take one phone call to be decided upon, and then there are complaints that take months. It's feasible there could be complaints...

There is a number of things the GNWT as a whole does. Supplementing wages is one thing so that employees can be paid a higher wage, things like our wage top-up program. We also have a wage subsidy program through ECE that supports employers who hire people who might need training. We help those kinds of people who need the training who maybe don't have the opportunities to get the big jobs yet. We are developing a polytechnic university in order to help train people to get the jobs they want. The plan is to make it as easy and accessible for people to get educated and get trained as we can. We...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT has the highest employment rate, the lowest unemployment rate in Canada, but it's not evenly distributed. We have communities where everyone who wants to work is working. Then you have small communities where there're people who might want to work, but there're no jobs. Over half our small communities have less than 50 percent employment. We have a number of different problems. In regards to the people who don't want to get off the couch, that's a tough one. How do you motivate them? I think the best way to start is to start young. ECE's doing a number of things...

I can send those off and request feedback from the standing committee, but the plan right now is really to have it community-driven and not have it necessarily dictated. That being said, there has to be some sort of structure around it, so we can definitely collaborate in that sense. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.