Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of finance. It doesn't look it like it outside, but summer is coming. The sun is shining, and our university students will be home soon from university, and probably some will start to book their tickets and get on planes in just probably a few short five to six weeks. So I'm wondering if the Minister of finance can indicate how many summer students the GNWT plans to hire this summer. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's not a formal target in place. I will say that for the last three years summer student numbers have continued to go up. We hit 327 in 2022. So if there are some competitive supervisors or managers out there, they may want to try and beat that for the coming here. That would certainly be great. There is and I would just note, Mr. Speaker, it is early days right now, but they departments shouldn't hesitate in getting their papers going now and reaching out to the Department of Finance if they want to hire a student. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm whether or not there is a deadline that departments need to put forward applications for summer students by, and can departments continue to hire summer students into the summer months? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's not a deadline. Certainly if departments get their materials in by January, which I think is sometimes the idea of a deadline, what that does is it allows human resources to work with the department so that the student is ready to roll, that they would have all their paperworks ready. And in that sense or rather by February if they can do that. If they can't, though, Mr. Speaker, then the students might just be hired later, and, indeed, there may be students who would prefer to be hired a little bit later. So while, again, the targets are to have everything ready in February, it gives students a bit of leeway, there's not a deadline as to departments and hiring managers should not hesitate. Please check in with their client services officer because we'd much rather have the students the start late than not at all. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I understand that my next question might be a little bit out of scope for the Minister, but I'm wondering if the Minister will then work with the Minister of ECE, because Education, Culture and Employment has a fund, a subsidy fund, that employers can take advantage of to hire their own summer students outside of the GNWT. And I heard from Kam Lake employers that the deadline associated with this subsidy is actually prohibitive for them to be able to hire summer students. I believe the deadline for that program is January. And so what happens is employers when they're looking for summer students come you know, when the snow starts to actually melt, they've already missed the deadline. So I'm wondering if the Minister will work with the Minister of ECE to extend that deadline? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sometimes, Mr. Speaker, we have a sense of some of the themes of what's coming at us, and I was just about to send a quick note over to the Member, but I've been kept busy today. So, Mr. Speaker, ECE, it's my understanding doesn't hold the summer subsidy program. These are actually quite a number of federal programs that exist, and there is a January 12th deadline, for example, for the employment and social development Canada summer jobs program, which might be the program that we're talking about. If so and regardless, if those are federal programs, what we could do, Mr. Speaker I'm sure that the Minister of ECE and I can work together on this. We both share responsibility for labour, with my ITI hat is get a list of the programs that are available, get a list of their deadlines, and at least at the very least get that out and put it out for employers to be very well aware of. To the extent that we can then perhaps go back to our friends over in the federal government and ask them for some flexibility, we could certainly see if there what options there may be in that regard. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that response. Mr. Speaker, one of the things I absolutely adore in the summer is seeing kids that I once knew as tiny little children in our community come back as university students and work in in even this building here. And it's great to get to see them gain valuable experience for what they're studying at school and what they might want to do when they come home. Unfortunately, this is an honour that is often reserved for either people living in regional centres or Yellowknife itself and that my colleagues from small communities don't have the same the same pleasure of seeing students from around the community come home and work for the GNWT. The GNWT does have a program called building capacity in Indigenous governments, and I'm wondering if there is a portion of that funding that is available to summer students so that summer or sorry the GNWT can work alongside Indigenous governments to provide summer employment in NWT's small communities for our postsecondary students. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Building Capacity in Indigenous Governments Program really has been quite a success. I'm happy to say it is oversubscribed. And that's good news because in this case, two departments actually are able to support two additional secondments. So it's oversubscribed, but it's being funded. So it's being fully utilized. It's an opportunity obviously I won't repeat the Member's visions of it. But we can't agree more; it gives an opportunity to expose public servants and an opportunity to build capacity with Indigenous governments within their public service. As for extending it further and creating essentially a new stream by which to accept funds, right now it is intended for existing public servants, for existing employees, not for interns. But I certainly can go back to the department and see if there's some opportunity for us to find new ways to recruit students back to the North to small communities and into the public service. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
