Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. In Fort Providence, there is an interest in terms of establishing a trail from perhaps the base of the Deh Cho bridge all the way to Fort Providence, and the community wants to create a project to draw in more tourists at the same time as trying to create a decent option up there for people who drive long ways up north, to give them an opportunity to walk the historical trail along the Deh Cho. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment: is there a program or funding available to create historical or interpretative signs for trails? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Within Education, Culture and Employment, there is no direct funding for signage for trails. However, the good thing about consensus government and the departments is we do try to work together, so I have spoken to my colleague with Infrastructure. There is actually funding within Infrastructure, probably within the community access program, that can be utilized. We are more than willing to work with the MLA if he would like some more information on that.
I don't know where this trail is leading to, but I will try my best. Would the Minister have her staff in the Small Community Employment Support Program reach out to the community on how they can access funding for this project?.
I would love to be able to say yes, I will do that right away, but I would rather, actually, just because I know how busy we are, if the MLA could send me an email with the request, then we would be more than interested to get the staff to action it. We will work with both the Departments of Education, Culture and Employment and Infrastructure because there is also money under the small business employment fund that maybe we can use to get people to actually do some brush cutting in the trails. There are other resources that we would like to be able to support, so, yes, if the MLA will send us an email, we will make a commitment to work hard to make this a success story in his his community.
I was trying to highlight the Small Community Employment Support Program that has been in existence for some time. It is available for small communities to try to create employment projects in their communities. I am supposing that the Minister is quite familiar with that. I wanted to ask her: what are some of the successful projects that have been carried out so far with this program?
The small community employment fund is actually one of the successes of this government, in my opinion. It is actually putting money into the communities based on where the community thinks that it would be most appropriate. I can't stand here and say what successful projects are, because, in my opinion, every single community is a successful project because that community has defined where they want that funding to go.
One thing I would like to say, though, and I have said it to the communities that I have had access to, is that most of the applications that I have noticed coming in for the small community employment fund have been for one-time projects. I am trying to really stress to the communities that you can actually hire, for example, one person to drive that gravel truck, get that load of gravel, and dump it in the community, or you can actually start thinking more creatively and figuring out how we can actually make sustainable employment so that we can have our own truck and our own business with that. I am trying to get the communities to stop thinking so individually focused and start thinking about economic development, because that is the key.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has touched on some key points in terms of, perhaps, long-term views of the Small Community Employment Support Program. Will the program continue, and what are the future plans for this program? Mahsi.
As we all know, this Assembly is coming to an end at the end of the month here, so I can't commit that the program will always continue. I can certainly say that that program has been successful. I want to, again, thank some of the MLAs on the other side who have come forward to actually get it funded more. It is successful, it is working, and I am hoping that future governments will carry it forward into the next Assembly and in Assemblies to come. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
