Jackson Lafferty

To my understanding, the information that we have received within my department working with the school boards on compiling all the information, we work closely with the school boards so we can access their information, as well, so they can share the information with us, so we can compare. If it’s based on per school or per educational authority, those are areas that the education authorities need to work with us. The information that we have we’ve compiled based on the projected enrolment. Phase one, phase two, year three approach is all projected on the student enrolment over a three-year...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When we’re rolling out the junior kindergarten, it’s for the whole Northwest Territories and the 33 communities that we service. There is phase one, phase two, phase three year approach, and obviously, Yellowknife will get the third year implementation of the junior kindergarten, so we’re making sure, and I made a commitment in the House yesterday, anything above and beyond the 16 to 1 level, that PTR level, my department will be subsidizing them. We’re going to be monitoring that, and it’s not only in Yellowknife, it’s all the educational authorities that could be on the...

As I mentioned earlier, it is scheduled for replacement or renovation in 2019. This is an area that we need to work on the Member. We’ll continue to work with the DEA pertaining to that.

When the time is close, we’ll definitely work towards that as part of the capital planning process. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We work closely with PWS when it comes to these assets in the communities such as schools. There is scheduled regular maintenance and upgrades to the educational facilities, so they remain in good standing. We have to be up to code on all schools. So if there is such an asbestos issue, then we would be proactive and work on it with PWS and put in mitigating measures to deal with that.

At this point, it hasn’t been brought to my attention if it is an issue, but those are just some of the areas we are working closely on with PWS. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We recognize that there are challenges within our Northwest Territories, along with other jurisdictions, as well, but as the Member indicated in his Member’s statement, we have one of the best SFA programs throughout the country. We improve our programming every now and then, changing our existing policies and enhancing through the review. We just conducted a review of SFA and part of the recommendations brought to our attention was some of the challenges that we’re faced with. So those are the discussions that we need to have as we move forward.

As indicated earlier, I...

Mr. Speaker, earlier today the Honourable Jason Kenney, Minister of Employment and Social Development, and I signed a Labour Market Agreement for Persons with Disabilities. Under this agreement, the Government of Canada will provide up to $1.25 million in federal funding each year for four years to the Government of the Northwest Territories to improve employment prospects for Canadians with disabilities and better meet the needs of Canadian businesses. The Government of the Northwest Territories presently contributes over $2.7 million, part of which will be used to cost match the federal...

This Legislative Assembly controls the budget, and once it’s passed we start implementing per departmental initiatives. I understand where the Member is coming from. This particular subject will be brought to the attention of the board of governors so they can add it to their strategic planning within their college campuses, whether it be one campus, two campuses or all three campuses.

Two, I agree with the Member that we need to attract those students to our three campuses throughout the Northwest Territories. That is our overall goal, and I promise the Member that this will be addressed with...

There are times when we say client whether it be a couple, but I can get that information for the Member on the more specific if it’s dependents what that pertains to. I don’t have the exact information here before me, but I can provide that detailed breakdown for the Member on the definition of dependents and others that he questioned earlier.

Section 5.1 that the Member is alluding to does cover the rent or mortgage and others that are necessary, and now to cover the cost of their rent may be provided on behalf of a single client. For a single disabled client, up to a maximum of $900 is available to those individuals. Again, clients with dependents are eligible for a maximum of… There’s another cost factor to that too. These are just some of the subsidies that are available through Section 5.1 that the Member is referring to, and it does cover the rent, the mortgage that has been highlighted in circumstances as what we are...

We have to deal with the overall GNWT funding that’s been allocated to the school boards. With that, obviously, there is a surplus of over $8 million. Somehow we need to think outside the box and strategically how to best invest into our educational system. It is GNWT funding overall, and as we go through the business planning process, this means that as we go through, we’ve identified several areas of interest investment such as we did with the wage top-up. Over $511 million that we’re going to move forward with the new money once the budget’s approved here. Every year we go through this, and...