Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, Mr. Speaker, I spoke about summer employment. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to try a different avenue with questions today; I'm going to ask the Premier what he can do. We've heard in this House that the Premier spent the last year encouraging his colleagues on Cabinet to hire more summer students. Mr. Speaker, can the Premier please advise the House how he's encouraging his colleagues to hire summer students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, October 27th, our colleague from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh spoke about the importance of summer student employment. This past spring, I spoke about summer employment for our returning post-secondary students and the students that are graduating from our high school. Mr. Speaker, as a person that was born and raised in the NWT, I understand the importance of summer employment for the students. I'm not going to talk about the days that I was employed as a summer student because it kind of ages me, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, when I was in university, I had...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's actually good news. I just wanted to get it clarified on that, and I hope the department is able to keep me updated. I know the community will, but, if the department can, as well, on the process of this as they move forward on this project. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess my struggle is that the health centre, health cabin, whatever you want to call it, in Sambaa K’e, the one presently is owned by the community and they've used that as an opportunity for revenue themselves. In my conversations with the community, they were looking at a number of options. Has the department finally made a decision to move ahead and just build it, and does the Government of the Northwest Territories own it? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was asking about the Sambaa K’e Health Centre, not the one in Fort Simpson. That's all right. I understand. So, again, it's the Sambaa K’e Health Centre. Can you please provide the status on that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Premier for his answer. I'm not talking about taking jobs away; if there's vacancies, you can put that part of the business plan I honestly believe, and work on it. My colleague spoke about a subsidy for small businesses or communities to help them hire additional summer students. Mr. Speaker, will the Premier commit to work with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to set up a subsidy of $5 an hour for at least a hundred positions at a cost to the GNWT of about $250,000? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like to thank the Premier for his answer. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that the Premier encourages his colleagues to try and meet or exceed last year's numbers, however, I believe there's a better way of doing it. Mr. Speaker, would the Premier please direct his colleagues to add summer employment opportunities for students as part of the 2017-2018 business plan?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my colleagues. Out of these applications, 306 students were hired by the government. This sounds like a great number and it is; however, the previous year we had more summer students being employed by the government.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister spoke about the Premier and former Minister of Human Resources encouraging all the departments to see how we can better utilize our summer students. I think this is a great step, however we need to do more. This includes having the departments identifying the number of positions within their business plans and not rely...

I thank the Minister for his answer. I'm just a little bit disappointed in hearing that it's a generic one and I appreciate we need to develop a territorial one, but when we're looking at the small communities we're trying to get them off diesel fuel. I mean, ultimately, we're trying to make it a better place for people and reduce costs. So will the Minister get his department or the corporation to look at that strategy and talk to the smaller communities so they can work on something that they can make use of their money to make it more cost-effective to live in their communities?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I was talking about in my Member’s statement and as I was saying in question period, there was a public meeting with the Power Corporation and they talked about their strategic plan for the communities and the power, and how we're going to generate it and make it specifically for the communities. So I guess my question to the Minister, can he please explain if, by developing this, did the corporation actually work with the communities to come up with their specific one or is this a generic one for the whole NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.