Jackson Lafferty

We will be having a meeting with the board at the end of this month to seek their input, and then we’ll move forward on that. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Part of the reason why we’re transferring the funding to the Healthy Family Program has always been part of our discussion when we went through the Child and Family Resource Program that was initiated and has been successful to date. It was of the opinion that we need to put money into the programming, so that’s where the Healthy Family Initiative is earmarked. We are transferring, so it is in the works. Health and Social Services has always been our partner on this approach. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, the pilot project we have done with Child and Family Resource Program into the communities, again, has been successful and this is building on that. Obviously, the Child and Family Resource Program is part of the Early Childhood Framework, the 10-year action plan and developing a 10-year framework and then a three-year action plan geared towards that. It is a continuation of the programming. This is one of the areas that Health and Social Services has been a partner. We are allocating healthy family programming based on the needs of the communities that have been identified. With...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We made some changes to our income security area where we want to have people entering the workforce as part of our target initiative, and we have five employment services officers into the regions. We have slated one for each of these communities: Fort Smith, Inuvik, Norman Wells, Fort Simpson and Behchoko. So, five in total. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I will certainly commit to that. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Those three positions are two linguists within the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat and one registrar, teacher certification is from headquarters to the Beaufort-Delta and also the South Slave region.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Any opportunity that arises, obviously, we like to take advantage of it. We’ve heard about this particular area, whether it be a traditional food that’s available. Again, it would have to be at the discretion of the schools to allow that into their facility. We are, as I stated, working very closely with BDEC, the Beaufort-Delta Education Council, if this is something that they want to explore and have that available to our students. This is just recent news to us, so it is being discussed at BDEC level with my officials. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Over the years we’ve been working with the federal government on having an identified Older Workers funding program. We just signed off an agreement with the federal government just recently in April 2014 for a three-year agreement. It is being spread out to the communities and it is those individuals who are 50-plus years of age, 55 years of age and older that can access this funding. So far we’ve implemented nine of the NWT communities as a start, Tuktoyaktuk, Fort McPherson, Inuvik, Aklavik, Ulukhaktok, Deline, Hay River, Fort Smith and Behchoko. I will just remind you...

It’s by community. Obviously, a community has to access and apply through the application process for funding. The funding is available, it’s just a matter of a community applying for it, so I would highly encourage those communities that have not applied to apply for the funding that’s available for them.

Taxing them is a different subject. There is funding available to us. As I stated, it’s not only Chevron. There are other companies that came forward. A basic example would be the multiplex and others. I think, in my view, we need to take advantage of these potential investors. As I stated before, there will be plenty more that will be up on the horizon and we need to work with them. We need to work with all stakeholders across the Northwest Territories. Any opportunities that they provide to us as a true partnership, then we need to take advantage of those opportunities.