Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If you’d look at the top of page 9-27, you’ll see literacy funding. You’ll notice that the difference between the 2004-05 main and revised estimates and the main estimates for 2005-06 is $300,000. That’s the $300,000 I spoke about.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a result of there being 33 fewer students enrolled at the end of September this school year, compared to the previous school year.

Thank you, Madam Chair. On my right is the deputy minister of the department, Mr. Mark Cleveland; on my left is Mr. Paul Devitt, director of management services.

Mr. Chairman, I assume the Member is talking about page 9-34 now.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The college has the ability to determine where they run their programs. It’s administered by a board and I think that they are quite interested in offering as many programs regionally as they can. To be honest though, they’re somewhat challenged because the amount of money we’re handing on to them has not increased; in fact, it has gone down over the years. So they are challenged to deliver any more programming than they otherwise would.

If the Member can demonstrate to them the economies that might occur by using the camps that may be available for very little cost in...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that both positions are in Rae. It's two equivalent positions, so it's equivalent to full-time equivalents. Given the caseload in the Tlicho region, that's not an unreasonable number when you compare the numbers that we have through regions across the Territories. There is not a big caseload in the Dogrib region. There are not a lot of people who are on income support. The economy has really dramatically impacted the numbers in the whole North Slave region that are collecting income support at present.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now that I have just about said everything that I was going to say in the Minister’s statement, I doubt that I will bother to say one. Members will see in the response to the petition that will be tabled tomorrow, there is encouragement for landlords and tenants to submit their comments to this government on rent control. We are interested in hearing the comments from the public on both sides and then we will assess where we go, once we have had the opportunity for that input. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have changed the supervisor. We changed the office manager in the last six months. So there hasn’t been the actual review done that we had talked about doing. We thought it would be better to let things settle out and let the new management have a chance to have some advice and input in the process. So we should be taking a look at that operation fairly soon and should have some response we can give Members in the not-too-distant future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We tried to encourage the people who had signed up for the Social Work Program this year to consider going to the Yukon College and taking the course there. We actually had somebody go and talk to the prospective students and encourage them. We only had an uptake of a couple, I think, that actually went. We are, again this year, going to work with Health and Social Services to try and put a renewed emphasis on recruiting people to enrol in the program. So we haven’t given up on it, but we couldn’t proceed with the course with that level of uptake. We will continue to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I suspect that the Member is referring to the seasonal clothing allowance, which is a bigger chunk of money on an occasional basis to reflect the need for warmer clothing, for instance, to get through the winter. That is only given out at certain times during the year, and typically only to people who have been on income support for a period of time. As I said in an earlier response, people tend to cycle on and off the system. So if they come in just needing support for a month, the expectation isn't that right off the bat they're going to get that funding right...