Alfred Moses

Some of our productive choices are trying to help people come out of poverty, so education, counselling, volunteering, where we're encouraging our income assistance clients to participate in a productive choice as they receive income from the GNWT in my department, but we're also trying to help them get out of poverty by getting the counselling that they need, looking at also getting the skills and training that they need, their education, and volunteering in their community.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are aware of the pilot program that's currently going on in Ontario. I believe it started up in June of 2017. The department is closely looking at that pilot program. In the meantime, we continue to make enhancements to our income assistance programs here, in the Northwest Territories. We want to make sure that all of our families, Northerners, do have the basic food and clothing, help them with rent and other expenses. As we are reviewing this pilot project, we're continuing to support our clients who are on an income assistance.

I am not sure if the Member knows, but, in previous governments, I have done a lot of work with youth in every position that I have had. We have a lot of smart youth out there and strong voices that represent their cultures, their languages, represent their people, and I am more than happy to reach out to the schools as well as some of the Indigenous governments that allow youth to participate in their daytoday business. We will be reaching out and finding ways to connect with our youth and getting their input in terms of looking at the possible development of a youth council for the Northwest...

I do know that we do have youth participate at the national level, also bring concerns forward at the territorial level. In a lot of our schools, they have school councils as well. I know there are some of our Aboriginal groups who have youth that sit on national and international councils that bring concerns forward to the national and international level from their respective regions, even the territory, itself. That is something that we'd be willing to take a look into.

As I said, it is something that is important. I have known some 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds who have run for seats in this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's great to see all the youth in the gallery here today. I do believe that we have some youth from the grade 6-7 Weledeh classes. Welcome to the Legislative Assembly. I hope you had a good tour this morning.

I also believe we have some exchange students from Quebec who are here. Welcome to the North and welcome to Yellowknife and the Legislative Assembly, as well as students from William McDonald. This is Education Week, as I have mentioned, Mr. Speaker, and I'd like to thank all the educators for all the work that you do. Mahsi cho.

As I mentioned, once this report comes out we'll see how some of our dollars have been spent and whether or not we've had organizations or communities that have accessed federal dollar spending. We do have unique ways of how we partner within our departments, but that is something we'll have to take a look at. I know, because there was such an influx of the $3 million on top of the $1.2, we want to make sure those funds were spent, that we did create employment, that we created jobs in the communities, developed projects in the communities, and I want to see how that report looks. Moving...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the work that the rural and remote community has been doing since it got together and started working with the Regular Members and Ministers of Cabinet. As well as the increase of the $3 million in the 2017-2018 operations budget, I can let the Member know, and I did make a statement earlier in the session that, from April 1, 2017, to December 31, 2017, we had created over 400 jobs in every region in the Northwest Territories. I have not got the updated stats from this year, from January 1st to present, but I am sure that it has increased as well in...

Every education authority works with their schools to develop their school-year plan. As such, with any supports that are needed, the administration will work on looking at providing those supports. I know there are schools that actually have tutors that go in after school hours. As well, I know there are a couple of schools here, in Yellowknife, that have evening classes that allow students that might have missed the morning or might have missed the day to come into school in the evening and catch up on their school work. There are definitely innovative options out there to help students...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, in my Minister's statement, I did mention the child and youth care counsellors in the schools. We will be piloting that initiative out with the Department of Health and Social Services. We are expecting these child and youth care counsellors to be in the schools but also to be offering services to residents in the communities throughout the whole year.

In terms of the Member asking questions about whether they will be in the school or do they have to be out, we also want to make sure that we do protect privacy and make sure that the students have the confidence that...

I do believe it is very important that our next-generation youth who are coming up and going to be our leaders in the future do have that input and also bring some of the concerns forward.

I know that a couple of governments back, it might have been the 15th Assembly, they did have a youth symposium that brought youth from right across the Northwest Territories. That brought some recommendations to the government, and the government did act on those recommendations. I do believe that is important. Once we have those discussions, I will be bringing that information back to Members.