Mr. Speaker, I was listening, with some interest, to Mr. Ramsay’s question. I want to ask the Minister of ITI, I have been privileged to attend two briefings with the mining sectors here in the Northwest Territories and I want to ask the Minister about the training for people in the Northwest Territories, specifically P1 candidates in my region and outside of the affected areas around Yellowknife. What is the government doing with the NWT mining society in terms of encouraging the mining society to go into the regions such as the Sahtu, Beaufort-Delta and Mackenzie Delta to entice new workers to come out to the mining workforce as per the NWT mining society’s mandate?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One thing we’re trying to do to increase the employment of Northerners in the diamond mines or other mines of the Northwest Territories is to increase the catchment area for workers. By that I mean we are looking at increasing the number of hiring points in the Northwest Territories and also to look at training more Northerners for specific jobs in the mines. So to do that, as I said, we have an MOU with the diamond mines and we’re working very closely with the Mine Training Society and Aurora College.
I certainly support the Minister in increasing the workforce in the North. I want to ask the Minister what his department is doing with the NWT mining society to get into communities such as the Sahtu to encourage workers in the Sahtu to come to the workplace here and to set up training programs with the NWT society. I don’t think I’ve seen them in the Sahtu. I only hear of them in the Yellowknife area. What is the Minister doing to encourage the NWT mining society to get out of the Yellowknife area and into the Sahtu to set up training programs there for the people in my region?
The Mine Training Society doesn’t have an unlimited amount of funds; they have a limited amount. So generally we work to provide training in the areas of greatest interest and most of the training has focused around the North Slave region. Although, recently there was a training program in Fort Simpson. Generally where there is identified interest, as the Member knows, as part of the MOU initiative we’ve been working through our career counselling offices at Education, Culture and Employment to make sure that all the communities that are serviced by the career centres have information as to the type and number of jobs that are available. In order to set up a training program, we would work through the Mine Training Society and Aurora College.
That’s what I was looking for, was to see if there was more creativity possible. They have a bunch of learning centres in the Sahtu communities that could be available. It takes one or two people from the mines. I’m not sure how it works. They can certainly work with the communities in the smaller centres outside of Yellowknife. I know the funds are limited. It’s funny how working with the diamond mines there’s lots of dollars in diamonds. If this government can get that, they can work with the learning centres to bring the NWT mining society into the regions and I think you’ll generate interest. I think that’s a plus. I’m just looking for some way how we can get them into our communities other than just having residents come to Yellowknife to take the training.
If all the diamond mines money doesn’t go into the Heritage Fund we should be able to have money for training. One of the priorities for our government working with the diamond mines is to make sure the people of the Northwest Territories know what is available to them and what the mines will do if they hire people in the Northwest Territories to work for them, so that they know what kind of benefits are there and whether the travel will be covered and so on. I think that the best thing for us to do, and the diamond mines management have gone and made tours to all the regions and I think we just have to work closely together to identify where there is interest in working in the mines. Through that process we can identify training opportunities.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to say to the mines that I appreciate them choosing Norman Wells as a pickup point for the workers coming out of the Sahtu. I want to ask the Minister about new development going forward on diamond mine training. Could he look at one community in the Sahtu bringing in new training programs in the next couple of months to develop a program that would have the NWT mining society work with the Aurora College to look at programs they could have in the Sahtu region?
I would communicate that to our people involved on the training side. I’m sure we can find an opportunity to do so.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
