Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This program targets young people who would be or should be in high school.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I don’t have the background on why the decision was made to require…It’s not a full year on the program, as I understand it. A recipient must have been receiving income support for six of the previous 12 months in order to qualify for the benefit. I suspect that it is because the amount they have divided up on a monthly basis would not be enough to purchase anything in the way of clothing. So in order to make it a reasonable amount, rather than giving out $20 a month or $40 a month, it’s seen as an offering in the program that allows a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister responsible for the public service has advised me that the review of human resource practices is underway, and that, in the not-too-distant future, a report will be available that will be provided to Members on their findings. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, employees are certainly not targeted for speaking to the investigators from corporate human resources about human resource practices within Justice. In fact, nobody in the Department of Justice has access to those interviews, so there is nobody out there who has any idea of what may have been said. So, no, there would be no targeting of employees for that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Territorial Court Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the document entitled Renewing the Labour Standards Act of the Northwest Territories, A Consultation Paper, October 2004. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that I would agree that this is totally separate. A company that is responsible for making a large amount of money from our resources in the Northwest Territories has a responsibility to help us deal with the social issues that arise from that money coming into the Territories. Therefore, one of the things that we are trying to do is to bring social issues into socioeconomic agreements with the company. We believe that we have to work with companies to support gender issues when we talk to them about the socioeconomic agreements as well....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member has a good point and it’s an issue that this government is quite aware of and is working to make sure that we keep in mind whenever we talk about issues like development in the North. In fact, the special joint committee on the pipeline, it’s part of its mandate to provide direction to the government on the negotiation of a SEA, and issues such as this are certainly the sort of thing that we want to see talked about during the negotiation with companies in the socioeconomic agreements. So we will make sure that we keep this sort of thing in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know I’ve talked to the college too about the facilities in Tuk and told them about the Member’s interest in seeing those facilities used for training purposes. So I am sure the college is taking a look at whether or not that provides an opportunity. The funding that is part of the Aboriginal Skills Employment Partnership Program will be administered by the committee that has been set up to oversee that sort of funding, but I will make sure that the Education, Culture and Employment representative on the committee keeps the opportunities in mind for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Labour Standards Act lays out employment standards for non-unionized businesses in the territory. It was first enacted in 1968 and was based on legislation in effect across Canada. It has been amended over the years on a piecemeal basis and now the act is disjointed and at times difficult to interpret.

The Department of Justice has initiated a review of the legislation and later today, at the appropriate time, I will table the document: Renewing the Labour Standards Act of the Northwest Territories: A Consultation Paper.

Mr. Speaker, in this...