Jackson Lafferty

When we talk about the language nests, obviously the program would have to be delivered by a language spoken qualified teacher. That is an area that sometimes we’re challenged with. To date I have seen some real success in regions that are delivering the Language Nest programming. We’ll continue to invest in those areas because they are working. When I talk about the elders in school, I want them to be fully engaged in those areas. I have made a commitment that we want that to be delivered. It probably won’t be in all schools, but starting this school year in the fall time. We want to have...

Mr. Chair, I am trying to get more detailed information from my staff here. There has been some fluctuation in, of course, income support throughout the Northwest Territories, and we’re trying to reflect on that where if there’s an increase in funding. We realize that some of the regions are lacking, let’s say, job opportunities, so there’s been an increase in caseload in those areas. But at the same time, there are other regions that their caseload has decreased, so it balances each other. Obviously, we like to see caseloads go down.

In due time, where the economic booming is happening in the...

The letter expresses an interest in a college campus. That’s as far as it went. Like I said, we need to get into more detail, which wasn’t provided.

That’s correct. It’s open to anybody that wants to deal with the preventive measurement, the early children’s initiative and so forth, in the 33 communities that we service, so it is open to them.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This is a concern to me as well. It has been brought up through the stakeholders and most specifically with the seniors as well, the elders that we brought in, that they want to have qualified individuals coming back to our communities and working for fair wages looking after our children, similar to teachers. Those are areas that we are looking at as we speak, and even through the Early Childhood Development Framework, it does consist of a lot of entities and it will capture the wages. It has been a concern for a number of years now, and it’s been brought up here in the...

The reporting and also appointing is laid out in the legislation. The president reports to the board, the Board of Governors for Aurora College. Also, I have working relations through various areas with the president. If there are things that need to be addressed or issues or concerns or ideas, then we would meet. The same with the college chair. I would have frequent contact with the chair as the need arises. But the reporting mechanism comes down to the president to the Board of Governors of Aurora College.

Mahsi. The pupil-teacher ratio has been brought up in this House, as well, along with inclusive schooling. It is part of the education renewal when we talk about the small communities, the teachers teaching so many students in their classrooms and how we expend funding to the school boards. So those are the factors I will be taking into consideration when we’re discussing that with the stakeholders, the school boards, educators at the community level, hearing their input, and based on that, we need to make some changes. We are legislated, but it’s well beyond the legislated level. So that’s...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The office of the Auditor General conducted a performance audit of income security just recently, spanning from April 2009 to September 2012. There has been a review, I guess, from outside, highlighting various aspects within the income security framework. The last changes we made were in 2007 after a review of our income security, so we’re just waiting for the outcome of the office of the Auditor General, what the outcome would be, and then we have to follow through with that. We’re just waiting for that, and proceeding once we get that information.

Again, as indicated, we just received the letter from the college that is showing expression of interest. That’s all it lays out. Now our department and the college need to sit down and discuss that, the interest, and where we’re going to go with that. Although we speak in general terms, we are talking about capital planning process. We will get there when the time comes. Now we are going to have my department meet with the college.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an area that we have been discussing interdepartmentally. There is the TSC chargeback, I believe, in every department. Our Department of Education, Culture and Employment, I believe we’re one of the biggest users along with Health and Social Services because of our videos and linkage.

We’ve been exploring different options on how we can get away from that specific area where our Internet accessibility is quite large and part of the GNWT system. This whole fibre optic link and also the e-learning is a small piece of it, but that is an area that we have been...