Alfred Moses

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and its partners across government, in industry, and education are all working together to ensure that NWT residents have the information they need to be well positioned to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.

Our government made a commitment in its mandate to take steps to close the skills gap using the Skills 4 Success Strategic Framework. This framework focuses on ensuring Northwest Territories residents have the skills, knowledge, and attitudes for employment success. This strategy is part of the continuum of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Minister responsible for Public Education, we have to provide the same programs and services to all communities across the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned, I can't look into the future and see where parents are going to put their children in terms of early childhood programming. What we are doing is we are addressing the needs of four-year-olds right across the territory, and we are going to continue to do that.

Providing early childhood quality programs and services throughout the Northwest Territories is a mandate of this government. On October 1, 2016, we made a commitment to all early childhood providers across the Northwest Territories by making changes to our early childhood programs, the way we fund them. I also want to assure to the Member, as well as families with four-year-olds, that JK is an option for families and a choice for families where they want to have their four-year-olds get the early childhood program services that they need.

Yes, those are some of the things that we have been hearing as we were going out doing our consultation, and we will share that detail when we go before standing committee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we do have a draft strategy moving forward that we are going to be sharing with the standing committee on developments. It entails a lot of items, but before we can table it in the House and really submit information, we have to go before a standing committee, and I encourage the Member to come to that presentation when we do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, colleagues, today I would like to recognize some hard-working and dedicated individuals from across the NWT who provide important advice and guidance to me as Minister responsible for Official Languages. These, of course, are the board members of the Official Languages Board and the Aboriginal Languages Revitalization Board, as well as the Regional Aboriginal Language Coordinators, who are responsible for the implementation of their Aboriginal languages plans. I would like to recognize Official Languages Board Chair Beverly Amos, from my hometown...

Yes, we can work with the Aurora College partners, ask them for what kind of orientation packages that they give to students for support that they need through post-secondary education. We will look at all three campuses to see what they provide and provide it to the Member should his constituents either want to go to Aurora College in Inuvik, Thebacha in Fort Smith, or the Yellowknife campus here in Yellowknife.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, I just want to commend the Member from Sahtu, the honourable Member from Sahtu, for actually making that trip to Fort Smith and to the Thebacha campus to check on his constituents who are seeking post-secondary education. In all of our campuses across the NWT, we do have counsellors who are able to help students should they be going through some difficult times or having challenges going to post-secondary education. We also have focused on life skills. This is the first time that some of the students might be away from home and in a different community. We...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 6 on Orders of the Day. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We do understand that the high costs of living here in the Northwest Territories is very problematic, especially in some of our rural and remote communities. We did do a review of the minimum wage. I understand that the Member is referring to a report that talks about the living wage that was done in 2015. We are committed to reviewing the minimum wage. We also made an investment during this budget to work with industry and businesses to help work on our small community employment support program to help create jobs as well as to help subsidize wages for some of our residents that are looking...