Marci Cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Education questions on my Member’s statement. I would like to ask the Minister if he is willing to review the Income Support Program in small communities, Employment Support Program, to look at the feasibility of transferring budgets to make the Small Communities Employment Support Program more substantial. Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I know when we went through the business planning process for main estimates for 2017-2018 we had some really good discussions on some ways and unique ways that we can get people back into the workforce through our Income Assistance Program, and the Member brought a very interesting concept forward and it's something that the department can look into. Obviously, you don’t want to have people relying on income assistance rather than finding ways to get them into the workforce, into training and skill development and becoming a more active member of society. So we are looking at those and looking at other options, and we have some decisions to come forward with we will bring it forward to committee and Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, some programs that are being delivered sometimes comes with some pre-requisites that individuals would at the end of the training have to have full-time jobs, and in our small communities there's no full-time jobs available for the most part. I'd like to ask the Minister if he could review the Small Communities Employment Support Program to remove any barriers that may prevent the program from being easily accessed.
We're always looking at reviewing our programs to make them more efficient and more effective for the residents of Northwest Territories. The CSCCS Program wasn't fully utilized over the last few years. I believe we had over 300 people who took part in it last year and got trained and skill developments. Myself, I just recently went to a labour market FPT meeting down at Quebec City where we're looking at getting more incremental dollars that might be able to offset some of those costs, but we can review it. The dollars have been fully utilized. Maybe we can do a better job of promoting it and getting information to the Members to share with their constituents, but that is a goal is to get residents in our small communities trained in skill development, and that's where our Skills 4 Success Action Plan and Strategic Plan is very critical moving forward in this area.
Mr. Speaker, many of the job and employment opportunities I speak of would be projects at the community level, various projects that the community could carry out as part of employment. I'd like to ask the Minister if it would be possible for the Minister to work with his department to direct the client service officers to work with the communities to look at all possibilities of employment in small communities.
CSO is a very integral part of our department when it comes to income assistance and programs. They do a great job in providing information to our clients, as well as our Career Development Officers, and we're just finishing up a one-year pilot program with Employment Transition Officers that actually go into the communities. Some of our Current Development Officers also go into the communities to provide education, training, information on resume writings, skill development and other areas in terms of literacy and numeracy to help people find jobs who apply for training workshops and finding those kind of things. So, yes, our staff is already kind of doing those things.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister work with other Ministers in Cabinet to utilize other government programs. I spoke of other government programs that can, I guess, create employment in the small communities. So can the Minister commit to the House to working with other Ministers in order to look at all the employment possibilities at the small communities? Thank you.
Yes, I will commit to doing that. I chair one of the education training and youth committees, and I want to make sure that it's on the agenda and that it is a priority especially for the small communities where it's needed most and finding the unique and innovative ways to get our residents educated, trained and also into the workforce.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
