Alfred Moses

Yes, I do. As I mentioned, the economy has taken a downturn; we do have more unemployed people in some of the communities, and I want to make sure that we focus on giving them every opportunity to get employment as well as develop their training and their skills.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That focus is to create employment in our small communities across the Northwest Territories, as well as work on developing training opportunities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I am well aware of that. That is why we are making some of the initiatives, strategies, investments, to address those issues. The Small Community Employment Support Program is one way we are doing that. Our enhanced Student Financial Assistance so people can get the training that they need to so that they can enter the workforce, our labour market contracts that we have with the federal government to address some of those labour market needs, as well, there are many areas that we are doing to try to address these concerns. We are working as a government to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes. Employment rates go up as the communities get smaller and, in some regions, we have seen where employment was thriving at one point and now it is, I will not say diminished, but slowed down by a lot. We want to make sure that we allow our residents, our Northerners, the opportunity to get the training, get employment, as well as increase skill development.

Currently, I do not have those costs for modular in front of me. As I mentioned, we were waiting to see what the space analysis says and what recommendations are coming out of that report, and are prepared to make decisions when we see that report and look at those recommendations. We just ask that YCS, YK1, be patient and continue to work with us to find a solution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, and that's why we've had these discussions. That's why we went and did the review in the schools to make sure that the school space was actually being used for what they were intended to be used for. Yellowknife does have a history of space sharing agreements. For instance, once St. Joseph's students had to be accommodated as a result of a fire at their school; YK1, YCS did enter into a space sharing agreement. It has happened before.

Recently, YK1 and Commission Scolaire shared space with the Ecole William McDonald School while that school is undergoing construction for their addition, so...

As I mentioned, on April 1, 2017, we did get a significant increase in that funding, and prior years the funding that we did have in place wasn't fully utilized. With this increased funding I thought it would be a great opportunity to reach out to more communities to offer that type of training, skill development, as well as increase employment in our other communities that have seen an economic downturn as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As you know, on April 1, 2017, there were significant enhancements to that program, with an influx of an extra $3 million. We made some changes to the program; part of that was actually looking at communities that weren't eligible before, and I'll say it again, these communities that were ineligible to apply for funding were Behchoko, Hay River, Inuvik, Fort Simpson, Fort Smith, and Norman Wells.

As Members of this House do know, we have seen a downturn in the economy, and I think this is an opportunity to work with other communities that weren't eligible for this fund previously to offer those...

Yes, I am well aware of that. We also have to understand that this program itself is applicationbased, so we work with our partners to ensure that they can put in an application and get that funding through the application process.

As I mentioned, we are going to get this foundational review. We set a timeline for March 31, 2018, and from that review, we are going to create a departmental response. We are going to share it with committee, we are going to share it with all Members of this Legislative Assembly, and as I mentioned, we are going to be working on a strategic plan going forward for the next 10, 20 years.