Bob McLeod

Mr. Speaker, June 15 to June 21, 2008, has been designated as National Public Service Week. As the Minister of Human Resources for the Northwest Territories public service, it is my honour to stand in the House today to recognize the significant contributions made by the approximately 5,700 Government of the Northwest Territories public service employees.

It is public service employees who make it possible for the government to deliver services to the residents of the Northwest Territories. These services range from front-line health care to maintaining our highways to educating our children...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document, entitled Communities and Diamonds — 2007 Annual Report of the Government of the Northwest Territories under the BHP Billiton, Diavik and De Beers Socio-Economic Agreements.

Document 59-16(2), Communities and Diamonds — 2007 Annual Report of the Government of the Northwest Territories under the BHP Billiton, Diavik and De Beers Socio-Economic Agreements, tabled.

Currently we have 75 progressive experience positions that are available. Most of them have been taken up for this year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a number of programs to entice summer students to return to the Northwest Territories. It comes in two forms: the northern Summer Student Employment Program and the Northern Graduate Employment Program. The programs that the Member is referring to…. Under the Northern Graduate Employment Program, we have a Graduate Transition Program, and that program is being reduced. It was a program to place returning students with the private sector as interns, and the government subsidized interns up to $25,000. Unfortunately, that program is being phased out, and we’re...

I guess we don’t want to be presumptuous; we want to make sure we follow all of our consultation requirements and provide early notification and so on. I think that probably within a month or so our new program will be out, which much more clearly identifies and defines market disruption to address exactly the situation the Member raised.

With regard to the business programs we deliver, market disruption is one of the principles that is at the foundation of all of our programs. So for any applications we receive, we ensure that we do due diligence to ensure there’s no possibility of market disruption.

Mr. Speaker, over 100 students from Kalemi Dene School in N’dilo and Kaw Tay Whee School in Dettah have been taking part this week in a traditional life skills program at the Yellowknife River.

Under the instruction and guidance of our Dene elders these young people are learning and applying traditional and cultural practices for tanning moosehides, preparing traditional foods, creating tools and playing Dene games. The students are also getting the opportunity to take part in the traditional construction of a birchbark canoe.

The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, together with the...

Mr. Speaker, I should point out that there are a number of funding agencies that provide for summer student employment, including the federal government and the Government of the Northwest Territories. I’ll be pleased to make a list of those programs available to the Member.

Mr. Speaker, the only program we have right now is the Progressive Experience Program, but we’d be prepared to look at something for the next business-planning cycle. Certainly, if we can reduce the costs to the government by having the private sector hire more summer students, I think that would be something we could work towards.

This is an area we’ve been trying to address for some time. We haven’t been able to work it out, principally because for contribution funding, we have to come to the Legislative Assembly every year for our budgets to be approved. I guess until such time as we find a way to deal with that, only at that time will we be able to address the Member’s question. It’s certainly an area we would want to try to achieve.