Jackson Lafferty

I appreciate that the Member is persistent. At the same time, we have to look at the caseload. If there is an increase in the caseload for a client services officer to perform extra duty on income security, this is an area we can definitely look at. We will seriously monitor the caseloads in the region.

Yes, there have been other positions such as client services officers in a number of communities across the Northwest Territories that fill similar positions. Full-time/part-time employment status is determined also on the clientele caseloads.

I also met with the Board of Governors on that same day, probably before or after Mr. Hawkins. We talked about the same issue. My understanding is that the Board of Governors will bring an idea forward to our attention within the ECE department. So we are waiting for the Board of Governors to bring us information that we can work on. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, there has been a couple meetings a few years back on potential partners, private partners, organizations, but the information has been brought back to our attention as we need to move forward. Those are the discussions that we’ve had in the past and we are open to ideas and suggestions on how we can move forward. There have been talks about having possibly a First Nations organization build a facility for us and lease it back to the GNWT. That was an option that was thrown at us, but we haven’t seen anything as a proposal or anything that we can move forward on.

Mr. Speaker, this...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Support for apprentices is a key part of the Government of the Northwest Territories’ plan to maximize opportunities for Northwest Territories residents and contributes to achieving this Assembly’s goals of healthy, educated people and a diversified economy. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment, along with our partners and apprentices, celebrate the success of the Northwest Territories apprentices and journeypersons during the Northwest Territories Apprenticeship and Occupational Certification Week, February 7th to 11th.

The department supports training and...

The federal funding, I don’t have that information specifically. I just highlighted our department and Health and Social Services’ contribution to Aurora College. I will gather that information on federal funding, if it does exist, to the Members.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The program that we deliver through Aurora College, the funding that’s required is $2.7 million from ECE to Aurora College for a bachelor of nursing, special work in nursing, health access programs. As well, Aurora College receives additional money from the Department of Health and Social Services in the amount of $511,000 to cover the masses of Nursing, Nurse Practitioner and Introduction to Advanced Practice programs. This is funding that’s been required for these programs.

There have been numerous discussion and consideration taking into account a number of factors when deciding when and where the reduction will happen, including where the positions were initially established, with the funding and the current client caseload again. So, yes, to answer the Member’s question, these have all been taken into consideration when we were deciding.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As Members know, the transfer of the positions back to NWT Housing Corporation on the Public Housing Rental Subsidy has been active. As a result, there has been a loss of administration dollars within our Department of ECE. ECE is required to reduce the number of client services offices across the Northwest Territories. Those individuals were also handling the case of public subsidy units, public housing rental subsidy area, and then at the same time the client services officers were responsible for income security. Now the responsibility is with NWT Housing Corporation so...

Mr. Speaker, we’re definitely open to discuss any potential opportunities with respect to a facility or programming. We did have a meeting in the past. I’m sure those individuals or organizations are listening to these House proceedings, so by all means, if they want to meet with us as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, we are more than willing to meet with them. Mahsi.