Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I cannot make that commitment until we do see a report in front of us and a report from the Aurora College. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently we are committed to working with the Minister of Health and Social Services and his department with the Right from the Start early childhood development action plan. There are 19 areas of action in there. I believe my department is focused on five of them, the Department of Health and Social Services on five, and then jointly we are working on nine of those areas of action. It is not only the Department of Health and Social Services. I think it is very important that, when we look at early childhood programming funding initiatives, that we also work with our...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we are looking at the income thresholds on this. We do know that some of our seniors do use their allocated Senior Home Heating Subsidy before the end of the winter seasons. We have been encouraging to also go to income assistance to see whether or not that can offset of the costs. As I mentioned, with income assistance and clients and families that we work with, it is on a case-by-case basis. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are currently in negotiations with the government of Canada. We are near to finalizing those agreements on the Labour Market Agreements for the Northwest Territories, and once those are finalized, we will see what the numbers are. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with the Member's comments. Actually, in fact, my counterpart in Nunavut, the Minister of Education, was one of the first participants in the Northern Youth Abroad program. It shows how big of an impact that program has on our youth in NWT and Nunavut. We can consider putting it in as a line item in future main estimates. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the onset of discussions with these programs, it was brought to us that the Social Work Program itself was the one that was looking at being slowly phased out. Those were discussions at the time with the board as well as the staff at the Aurora College, and so the Social Work Program that is currently at the Aurora College is not going to be reinstated. However, I do understand that the Aurora College has undertaken a review of that program as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, this is Education Week in the Northwest Territories. I would like to celebrate the educators who have dedicated their careers, and lives, to teaching our children and youth. I would also like to share how I and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment are supporting their success.

Right now there are more than 800 educators here in Yellowknife at the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association Educators' Conference. They are working together to strengthen education in the territory by participating in workshops, professional development, and training sessions.

Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This supplementary benefit here in the NWT was the first time we increased it in a number of years. We are always looking to find ways that we can get extra funding from outside governments and other governments, possibly the federal government, but at this time, we will have have discussions on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I am prepared to take a look at it, have those discussions with my staff, but also bring that to Cabinet. This one is always one that we are always going to have a very high line item in. We have made some other improvements, as we talked about earlier in this House, with the Small Community Employment Program, getting jobs into the communities, other areas that other departments provide, such as housing and other benefits as a government to our residents in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Early on in the session here, I had made a couple of statements in this House. We do have an ambitious postsecondary agenda moving forward. That includes legislation, looking at possibly the degree-granting programs, and also, with this foundational review that is going on, we are going to continue on that path and see how we can best make the Aurora College provide the best programs and services to our residents of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.