Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to follow up on my statement from yesterday and today and talk about student financial assistance policies which, as I said, are not working as they should. The first one I would like to talk about is the residency requirement. I asked in my statement and I want to ask the Minister at this point, what is the rationale and why did we require for a student to be out of post-secondary schooling for a year before we will fund them for student financial assistance? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. There are purposes for having policies in place and the process itself where individual students are sponsored, up to 1,600 students. There are students out there who also qualify for southern funding, as well, in provincial jurisdictions. We have to be careful that there are no duplications. We are mindful of that and we are monitoring it as well. Those are some areas where we have policies in place so there’s no duplication from other jurisdictions, so there is no double-dipping. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I didn’t really hear an answer to my question as to why you have to be out of school for a year. I can appreciate you don’t want people double-dipping and getting student financial assistance from a province and also a territory, but I don’t understand why we can’t monitor that and allow students to go from a school in Alberta to school in the NWT from one school year to the next.
The second question I would like to ask the Minister with regard to the residency is we have determined that someone must be in the NWT for 12 months before they are eligible for student financial assistance. It doesn’t seem to matter where you were born, where you grew up, how long you’ve been out of the territory.
I’d like to ask the Minister what the rationale is for 12 months in the NWT before you can establish residency. Thank you.
That policy has been in existence since 2000, for 15 years. We’ve heard from students about the particular policies we have in place. There are certain areas where 12 months’ residency versus what Members suggested, three months. If an individual moves south after high school, whether it is for work or school, and they come back for three months and go back to school again to further their schooling down south, they would qualify based on what the Member is suggesting, three months. There is no guarantee that these students will be coming back. We just have to be mindful and monitor those mechanisms that we have in place, Mr. Speaker. We are open to discussing these areas of residency. We’ve made some drastic changes, as you know, in 2015, 2013, 2006-07 and 2000. It does take time to make some changes, but we have enhanced our SFA program and we have one of the best SFA programs in the whole of Canada.
Thanks to the Minister for that response. I’m really pleased to hear that there’s a willingness to consider a possible change. I’m not too sure that he said he would consider three months. I’ll leave that to my colleague Mr. Bouchard to follow up on.
I want to ask a question with regard to the other policy that I mentioned, and that has to do with travel. I spoke yesterday about a mother who endured Christmas on her own because her children were flown home by the dad and she was left at school on her own. I had made a suggestion. I provided a solution to the Minister yesterday.
I’d like to ask the Minister if he will consider if what he considers wrong with providing a dollar limit to a student. They can travel up to whatever the dollar limit that SFA sets. Once that’s gone then they can’t travel anymore. Will he consider that and does he see anything wrong with that?
Again, that particular policy has been in existence since 2000 as well. Depending on which students you talk to, some students want to be down south with their family that they brought over there. They don’t want the hassle of coming back to the Northwest Territories, to their community, with the kids that they have without belongings, so it’s their choice if they want to pursue that.
There is a cost factor that we need to look at. How much would it cost us? With 1,600 students, how many are parents with children and dependants? Those are areas that we are currently looking at and how can we move forward on this. If there is any decision that needs to be made, obviously, it would have to be at the forefront of the 18th Assembly government.
Again, we just made substantial changes in 2015, so it will take some time to provide that recommendation to the new government.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks to the Minister again. I appreciate that there were a lot of changes that were made fairly recently, but I have to say to the Minister, he quoted both of these policies of having been in existence for a long time. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t cut it with me. Just because it’s been here for a long time doesn’t mean it’s right.
I would like to ask the Minister, in terms of allowing students, of doing the best for our students, and I guess I would challenge the Minister to read my statement from yesterday and for him to understand that this mother spent Christmas on her own and not with her family. But will he consider and will he recognize that there’s an ability within staff to make some of these situations work? Will he empower his staff with the flexibility to make decisions not to throw the policy out the window totally but to make a decision based on the particular circumstances of a student and allow for the best interests of the student to be met?
Any changes we make to our policies, obviously there’s a cost factor, as I stated, and this is an area that we are looking at.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
