Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In response to Minister Ramsay’s statement today on morel mushrooms, I have a few questions. We have seen the morel mushroom pickers converge on Hay River. It’s an interesting group, the ones who are from outside of the Northwest Territories. You can recognize them readily. “Hi. You must be here to pick mushrooms.” That’s what I usually say to them. I can’t tell you why I recognize them, but anyway, they are coming in and the Minister has indicated that this is an industry that could result in millions of dollars for harvesters. They say the department has offered on...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about what is coming up next week in Hay River, the 25th Annual Track and Field Championships in Hay River, territorial championships.

This Territorial Track and Field Championship always takes place during our session at this time of year. Every year the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs charters an airplane to take Members who wish to attend the opening ceremony down to Hay River for this event. I’d like to thank the Minister for making that opportunity available again this year.

I would encourage Members to attend. If you have never...

Thank you. We will reconvene after a brief break. Thank you.

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I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.

I would like to ask the Minister of ITI to share with the Assembly the risk-benefit analysis that the department has undertaken to determine how this territory would gain from allowing hundreds of non-resident harvesters to pick mushrooms on the land who will not pay income tax to the GNWT and, at the same time, will put the territory at great risk either for rescuing them or dealing with their emergencies or, as I said, starting fires that we know costs millions of dollars to suppress. What is the cost-benefit analysis of that being done? It’s a great idea. Come on up here and pick mushrooms...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps in the past, and I’m not too sure of the details of this, this government collaborated and cooperated with the private sector to expand the number of students employed back in their home Northwest Territories for the summer months who are involved in post-secondary education.

I’d like to ask the Minister if his department has recently contemplated the idea of doing a top-up to the private sector for hiring post-secondary school students in their workplaces and is that a way that we can expand the number of opportunities? We don’t want to lose our students to the...

I’d like to ask the Minister, do you have any idea what the breakdown is? Obviously, they’re hired for our Affirmative Action Policy, which would then employ priority 1 and priority 2 hire candidates, and I’d like to ask the Minister if he has any kind of a breakdown on how many of each of that category are hired by these departments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to point out an irony, as I see it, with respect to hiring summer students to come and work in the Northwest Territories. Post-secondary students at southern institutions, we are supporting them, we are paying for them, and many of them who want to come back to the Northwest Territories for the summer cannot get a job with the public service.

The irony I speak about is that this government, on the other hand in another department, spends I want to say millions. I don’t know the exact number, but millions of dollars to go out and promote a program...

That is very welcome news, because I tend to hear more from the priority 2 students who are out studying, and when they come home, for some reason, they get screened out. So, it’s very good for the public to be aware of that breakdown between P1 and P2 students. So, I’m glad we’ve got that out there and on the record.

However, we have more than this number who are out taking post-secondary education. We have a recruitment and retention issue in the public service in the Northwest Territories. I still think it would be better if there was an initiative to hire more summer students and try the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about this government’s opportunity to provide post-secondary students who come home to the Northwest Territories to work for the summer. I don’t know what the statistics are right now on whether that number has been growing. I’m not sure what the statistics are with respect to how many of those students are priority 1 hires and how many are priority 2s, and I’d like to know, also, how many of those positions that are made available are made available here in the capital and how many are in the regions, and I’d like to know if the...