Thanks, Mr. Speaker. After that exchange, I have a lot of questions for the Minister of Finance myself, but I'll keep it to the Minister of ECE for now.
So like many issues in the North, the federal one-size-fits-all approach isn't working for the territory, and recent federal limits on temporary foreign workers are concerning to my constituents. Has the Minister formally asked the federal government to increase the quota of nominees? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Great Slave. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in short, yes, absolutely. This is our first time -- 2024 will be our first time ever filling our quota for the nominee program in the Northwest Territories. We have requested an increase, and this is similar to other jurisdictions across Canada. We've requested an increase from 300 to 500. In the meantime, I can also -- and sorry, while we have not heard back from the federal government on that one, I intend -- I am expecting to hear back from them by the end of the year. And I could also confirm for the Member that we have asked about an increase to our allotment in this calendar year, both politically and at the officials level, but our allotment currently sits and remains at 300. Thank you.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. That's good news.
I'm also wondering in the solution that she is proposing with her federal counterparts whether there might be part of it that would look like the deal that the Yukon recently secured earlier this month to secure temporary measures to extend work permits. Mr. Speaker, if she could elaborate on that. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, temporary measures that the Yukon joined allows the Yukon nominee program to support the extension of work permits for applicants in their assessment queue that they currently have and who have work permits that expire in 2024. One of the things that we did here in the territory is that we prioritized those applications in 2024 and expect to be able to work our way through them in this calendar year. So the Government of the Northwest Territories did look at the option and opt in program that Yukon is currently partaking in but decided that they would be able to process the applications in this current calendar year and so it wouldn't serve our needs. Our needs are to continue to work as quickly as we can through applications. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So we're nearing the restart of this program in January for a new batch of, I guess, up to 500 now, hopefully, but 300 definitely, which brings fears for my constituents about a bottleneck. Can the minister explain how ECE is preparing for applications in 2025 and whether the applicants who are affected by the pause will be prioritized? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, so applicants with an expiring work permit in 2024, as I said, we're still able to submit their applications to the nominee program and are being assessed within the queue based on that priority. Applicants who have not been able to apply because of the pause that was put in place will be able to apply when the program opens up in January of 2025 again. So in acknowledgement of the increase to applications that we have received, Education, Culture and Employment is doing what they can to ensure they have a full complement of staff in order to receive the increased -- expected increase in applications again in the next calendar year.
The other thing that is happening that we talked about during the last sitting of this Assembly was the amalgamation of our immigration programs from Education, Culture and Employment and Industry, Tourism, and Investment and both being placed within Education, Culture and Employment. So that will help in the future with staffing capacity as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary, Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister have a handle on how many applications she's expecting for 2025 considering the backlog now and what she might expect in the new year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that would be a hard one to predict. I know that we did receive more applications than our allotment this year. It wasn't a completely unmanageable amount, so I was hoping to see an increase to our allotment in this calendar year to be able to continue to receive those applications and to process them. I would expect that if our allotment remains the same that we would expect to see a similar number of applications come through in the Northwest Territories, if not a little bit more, because of changes that are happening to the program down south as well. But I hope that I will have good news for this House and that we end up seeing an increase to our allotment for the program. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
