Daryl Dolynny

Does committee agree that Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Act, is ready for third reading?

---Bill 24 approved for third reading

Mr. Speaker, I will entertain those numbers when the Minister has them for me. That would be great.

We know that this Temporary Foreign Worker Program is, as I said, delivered here through the NWT Nominee Program. We know that a recent ITI Economic Opportunity Strategy implementation plan proposed strengthening this NWT Nominee Program. However, there has been little information on the proposed timeline of action. There hasn’t been any mention of any anticipated resources required.

Can the Minister share with the House what is this action plan and how much is this going to cost taxpayers?

Thank you, committee. I’d like to turn your attention to Bill 24, clause 1.

---Clauses 1 and 2 inclusive approved

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I discussed some of the concerns surrounding a Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Admittedly, the Alberta Labour Minister earlier this week indicated that Ottawa is over-reacting with the foreign worker moratorium and that responsible employers are being unfairly punished. Ultimately what we are hearing from many of the big western provinces is that they want to have more control over the program. It’s about a month since the temporary freeze on the program. I thought it would be important to see what our Minister of Education, Culture and Employment has to...

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program has been a hot button topic for Northerners and Canadians for the past month. This program is delivered in the NWT by the Department of ECE and ITI as the NWT Nominee Program.

This program of last and limited resort is designed to be accessed by employers facing genuine acute labour shortages and only after Canadians are not available to fill the job. Admittedly, opponents of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program argue it takes jobs away and drives down wages. Proponents argue that not enough Canadians are willing to work in certain...

Madam Chair, I am encouraged to get that type of information, and I think committee would also be interested in receiving that.

Lastly, this is a question I brought up two years ago when we had the opportunity to look at this bill. Last time we increased it to $40 million. It was the fact that if we are going to do the work of opening up a bill to do a consequential amendment to the act, the fact that the appeals program was also noted as being an opportunity in this area and, again, I ask once again.

The student financial assistance appeals process is in dire need of a review. When can we...

Madam Chair, for the life of me I can’t understand. If we have a revolving amount of money, which is a total wholesome amount, a pot, if you will, and we are giving out loans and we are collecting loans back in payment, to me this is a revolving pot of money. If we are, by virtue, having trouble, as indicated by the Auditor General, and I am hearing promising words that we are working towards mitigating collection, which is good to hear, that sounds like by default that we are actually increasing this revolving pot limit. For the life of me, I can’t understand how these are two separate issues...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Some of the discussions that we had with this bill in camera I want to bring to the floor of the House to make them public. One of the areas of concern that I know I had as a Member, this is the second time during the life of this Assembly that we’ve come back to add a component, or a financial component to this SFA total. I just want to make sure that we’re doing things in the right mannerism.

One of the concerns we had, and it was also brought up and echoed by the Auditor General of Canada, is that there has been some concern on the collection of student financial...

Thank you. This is exactly the problem with why the Auditor General of Canada was brought in to evaluate this project. We continue to have mismanagement of these cost overruns, we continue to have a clandestine approach to how this project is being managed in the department, Members on this side of the House have no idea where this money is being spent. We go to the website, there’s nothing mentioned. We go to the Deh Cho Bridge info website, what does it say, account suspended – no information.

Can the Minister indicate as to when we’re going to get updated information so we can follow this so...