Alfred Moses

No. I just appreciate the Member's feedback. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are doing a number of things within the department with our education renewal. One thing in terms of graduation, we are doing a Pathways to Graduation that we are working with students as young as grade seven, grade eight, and finding what their needs are, as I mentioned in my Minister's statement earlier today. What their interests are, what they want to explore, and we want to support that.

The instructional hours allows for teachers to do some planning, assess, do some professional development for themselves, and get prepared so that they can have quality education...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, income assistance is not indexed to CPI. There are various things that we do take into consideration when we look at income assistance and providing that financial support. It is on a case-by-case basis. From my knowledge, I don't think any jurisdiction in Canada actually indexes their income assistance. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's the intent of this accountability framework. As you see, we do have a contribution agreement with the Aurora College for quite a lot of money and we want to make sure that dollars are being spent effectively, efficiently, and that they are held accountable to the dollars that we are providing them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the grants, those are more dollars for the individual, where, under contributions, we try to work with community organizations that will help employ people with disabilities, so the dollars there are a little bit higher. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think a great vision would be to see more of our young adults who have been out of the school system for a while, even adults getting back in and getting the education that they need to become employable. I know there's going to be a big focus on the Skills 4 Success initiative that we've undertaken. We've already got that into the secondary schools, and they want to utilize our community learning centres to the best of their ability so that they can help our residents become educated. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we looked at, also, the graduation rates. We are not seeing a big number of graduates coming out of the social work program or the TEP program for the investments that we are making. It was a decision that was made by both the Department of ECE in collaboration with Aurora College to find where these reductions were.

I just want to emphasize again that we are supporting the students who are currently in the program. We want to see success. We want to see better outcomes, and we want the students who are in these two programs right now to become part of the public...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is correct. Some of the items that Mr. Lovely just pointed out reflect that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, we do work with the Department of ITI. There are a couple of different streams that a person can come and work up in the North and be part of that Nominee Program. Obviously we do work with our industry partners and private companies that do need temporary foreign workers, as well as through our stream where it is more application-based working with that. I know the federal government does a good job of going out in terms of promoting the program worldwide, and we are just benefactors of the work that they are doing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I am pretty sure the Aurora College does. I have seen them at career fairs. I have seen them promoting all their programs, not just the two that the Member is focusing on. We do have a lot of other programs within the Aurora College system, spread out among our three campuses, and I am pretty sure that Aurora College promotes them all equally. Thank you, Mr. Chair.