Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to say a few things on the budget. One of the issues that we talk about is to try to encourage employment and job opportunities in the Northwest Territories. What really frustrates me is I have 14 people in my riding of Aklavik and there are some 20 people being laid off from the Arctic Tern facility in Inuvik which gives us something like 38 people being laid off in the Inuvik region. I, for one, feel that we’re spending $1.4 million to promote awareness in southern Canada for jobs and life opportunities in the North. If those individuals in Aklavik alone, those 14 people, can’t find work, they have no choice but to leave. Probably their best bet for employment is to move to the Yukon. If those 14 people left the Northwest Territories, they will take almost $300,000 of transfer payments with them and never mind if their families leave with them. I think that this government is not very considerate of the individuals, the effect of layoffs, the effect of limited jobs in our communities.
We have some 45 percent unemployment in my riding. I have never expected in the last 15 years as a Member of this House that I would see 45 percent in my community. I think it’s frustrating that we come here and talk about a budget with all these great ideas and concepts but we are laying people off that are the hugely affected by unemployment and statistics in our communities. I think we’re sending the wrong message by spending $1.4 million in southern Canada when we can’t even find jobs for people who live here. I’d like to ask the Minister what exactly we’re going to do to ensure that we can keep the residents of the Northwest Territories employed so they don’t have to leave the Northwest Territories for work.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have to do a number of things in this area. We have to continue to look at bringing qualified people north to fill jobs that are hard to fill. At the same time, as I indicated to the Member for Tu Nedhe, there are investments being made in the small communities, the $925,000 that was just announced for the Small Community Employment Program, the $350,000 for student employment.
In Aklavik I understand that the affected employees will be given full consideration under the government’s Affected Employee Policy, that there will be a number of different jobs available. We have money in tourism that will hopefully assist in the small communities. We have a fairly significant amount of money being added to the SEED program so that there is money to try to encourage community entrepreneurs, especially in the smaller communities. We’ve just about doubled our Community Harvesters Fund. We’re trying to do a number of things to promote employment in the communities.
As we look at being creative and thinking outside the box, I think there are a number of areas that can be explored, possibly under housing and how to do maintenance in a more coordinated way in small communities. For example, where you have housing, you have municipalities, you have the government, all with significant assets and none with enough money to do the proper job and other opportunities to join forces and look at a collaborative approach at a community level. There would be enough maintenance work to be done that journeymen and apprentices could be hired that are currently now probably flown in from regional centres.
It will work great in a world where you have an economic base to work out of, but in our communities we don’t have that. The job opportunities are not there. I believe there is only the possibility of two people getting some sort of job within the government while the other 12 people are basically out in the cold. I’d like to ask the Minister what exactly are we realistically doing to invest in the people of the Northwest Territories, especially our young people who are going off to graduate from high school and getting post-secondary education only to be told, sorry, we’re spending $1.4 million to hire competition for the same job you’re coming home for. I find that kind of odd that on one hand you’re saying that, while we’re trying to get professionals to work in the Northwest Territories. Excuse me, the Aboriginal people in the Northwest Territories make up less than 30 percent of the workforce in the Government of the Northwest Territories but they make up over 50-some percent of the population. Yet we have an Affirmative Action Policy and the majority of the people that are being laid off in Aklavik are affirmative action candidates. Affirmative action numbers are going to go down again. I’d like to know from the Minister what exactly we’re going to do to ensure we have retention programs and services in place to retain resident jobs in the Northwest Territories for our residents.
As I’ve indicated, we have to do both. We have a program now where we, as a government, hire graduates on an interim basis, give them an opportunity to get settled and possibly find full-time employment. The Make Your Mark Program is critical. We hear it from businesses that they have trouble recruiting staff, many of them professional or very specialized kind of skills. We’re investing and working with over 40 companies, trying to meet their employment needs by assisting them. We know we have to do both. We’re investing significant amounts of money encouraging students to go out to school. We’re reviewing our Student Financial Assistance Program to make sure that it’s adequate as well.
Again in the budget we talk about sustainable communities. Every job we lose in our community makes that community unsustainable. It depends on capacity in the community, vibrant people working new jobs, dollars staying in our communities, and also ensuring that we have the capacity in those communities. So if we’re going to be laying off people in Joe Greenland who have LNs that basically have the education and training and those people who have been there for some time, I mean, this facility has been functioning for 32 years. There are a lot of people who are working there. I’d like to know what we’re doing, when you talk about sustainable communities, ensuring that those communities are realistically stable and that the government quit staking jobs out of the communities.
I’ve given a fairly extensive list of some of the program areas that are being funded and that support is there. We’re working, as well, with communities. At the same time we also know, as we talk about efficiencies and effectiveness, the issue of long-term care facilities and the fact that they can only be sustained in regional centres. That’s a direction that the government is going in because it’s the most efficient and affordable way to deal with the issue. At the same time we’re adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Home Care Program so that in fact we can work better and more effectively in the communities with the families and health centre and home care staff that are going to be hired to help assist in keeping folks, elders, and those with needs in their own communities in their own homes. Thank you.
Thank you Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary Mr. Krutko.
Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister, I know I requested this some time ago and yet we are almost at the end of the life of this government. We had a meeting with the Minister in regards to finding, in regards to the rural remote communities, of giving us actual cost breakdowns per program in each community, cost per program, number of jobs in those programs and exactly what the cost to operate programs and services are in our communities and the services that are being developed out there. I would like to ask the Minister if he could pull that information together. He has already committed to it, we haven’t received it and we only have a couple of months to go here, so I would like to ask him, can I get that information before the end of this session? Thanks.
I do recollect the discussion around the committee table about that basically geographical tracking information. I had understood it had been provided, but I will check and I will commit to the Member that we will get it to him during the life of this session, as he has requested. Thank you.
