Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, on May 13 to 16, 2012, 17 youth from the Northwest Territories participated in the national skills competition in Edmonton, Alberta. There were 500 competitors from across Canada at the competition, with a team from every province and territory.

There were about 40 contests at this event, and our team competed in Auto Service, Carpentry and Industrial Mechanics, Cooking, Plumbing, Electrical Wiring, Welding, TV and Video Production, and Graphic Design.

I am extremely proud to report that three of these competitors returned home with national medals in hand:

Antonio Lewis, gold in...

Madam Chair, notwithstanding Rule 6(1), I move that Committee of the Whole continues sitting beyond the hour of daily adjournment for the purpose of continuing and concluding consideration of Tabled Document 19-17(3), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 1, 2012-2013.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I feel that we definitely need to explore this area where demonstration of other skill sets, those talented individuals from the Northwest Territories can be exposed. The Member and I talked about this in length, about the possibility and where we can explore opportunities. I will definitely commit to the Member and this House that we will be further exploring this opportunity on the demonstration of other skill sets at the National Skillset Competition. So I’m committing to that.

That’s the very reason why we need the assistance of the principals, the teachers, the guidance counsellors, the school boards, the chairs, the board members, the leaders, to give us that information. We cannot keep track of 3,000 students on an individual basis where they plan to be. We’re going to do our part to monitor the best we can as a department, working with the career counsellors at the community level, the regional representatives through our department. Yes, we’re going to be working with the department, and I take up the challenge to work with the community organizations. We have...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Through the divisional education councils in the regions we monitor those students that are graduating from secondary school. Post-secondary is a bit different. Students are on their own, but we track them through student financial assistance. Once they’re sponsored by the department, we know who those students are, which field they’re in, the year they’re in the program. We’re definitely keeping track of secondary and their pursuance of which program they’re interested in. That is information that is available through the divisional education councils as well.

Mahsi. We do have various organizations that are working with us, whether it be the Mine Training Society, whether it be career development officers at the community level that do promote and encourage students, especially those individuals that are in Grade 10, Grade 11, Grade 12 that attend post-secondary as part of their tour orientation. So we do encourage those students to pursue post-secondary, and we work closely with the career officers and identify those individuals, what their interests are and work with them.

Our SFA is there for them, highlighting which area of interest and work...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Those need to be addressed with the Beaufort-Delta Education Council. My staff is listening. Definitely, my department will follow through and monitor, especially this fall, how many students will be attending Inuvik from the outlying communities, and the succession plan. I can get back to the Member about the number of students who will be boarding in Inuvik, and where they’re going to be boarding and provide that information to the Member from BDEC. Mahsi.

Mahsi. The attendance, we currently deal with that through high school and through the Student Achievement Initiative that we pursued. We do have a plan in place. We’re rolling out the implementation plans. That’s one of the areas of interest is attendance, deal with the attendance. But when it comes to post-secondary, the students are more mature and they need to be independent. So we can’t really monitor the post-secondary students per se, but we’re doing what we can with the schools, the high schools to continue monitoring. The results of absenteeism have become a challenge. So we work with...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We like to brag about our SFA program comparable to other jurisdictions. We have one of the best Student Financial Assistance programs, and as the Member alluded to, we are in the process of finalizing the recommendations that were brought to our attention.

I did meet with the standing committee to review those and we will be coming forward with those recommendations and making some changes to reflect on what we’ve heard from the students, from the teachers, from the parents and all of those individuals from the general public. So in order to make those changes, we need to...

This particular issue has been addressed with the Beaufort-Delta Education Council and there’s been some correspondence back and forth. This has been an ongoing issue and I did raise that issue with the board chairs, as well, during a chairs meeting. They’re fully aware of it. They’re doing what they can to accommodate those students that will be in Inuvik from outlying communities. We will continue to monitor that and we’ll continue to pressure the BDEC to assist those students to the best of their ability in the community of Inuvik.