Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it was with great delight that Northerners who rely on the Northwest Territories nominee program got the rules finally last week, but there's a new points’ criteria that's been attached to the employer-driven stream. Unfortunately, my office asked for more information but were told to look for the articles and documents. People want to see what this is all about. Will the Minister publish very clear guidance about how the points system will work for the NTNP program? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, absolutely, we want people to have access to information along with guidelines that they can access so we can certainly publish some information. And this information is currently available but, I mean, I am more than happy to -- understand what the Member feels is missing, but it's available on immigratenwt.ca. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The specific -- to answer the Minister's question, the specific criteria on how applications will be -- how the points will work, how they will be weighted. People will need to -- feel that they want to see more things. They understand how the process is, that there's a new step, but they need to understand what points they will get, how that will be evaluated against other applications, the whole kit and caboodle. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, on immigratenwt.ca, there is an employer-driven stream expression of interest points grid that's currently available. This points grid goes through all the different categories, what points are afforded and how. Because the major thing that we heard was an ask from the NWT -- whether it was employers or people participating in the program -- was transparency and fairness. And so we wanted to ensure that we were both publishing the different points that they would be graded against, the grid they would be used, and then within five days of them submitting their application they would get something that would confirm how many points that they were allotted so that they could compare and know exactly where they were at. And we also made the commitment as well of making sure that we were being transparent as a government and letting people know what range different applicants were falling into within the Northwest Territories so we had an idea as an entire territory of who was applying and kind of what -- where they fell within that prioritization grid. Thank you.
Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I haven't heard any critiques about it. People just want to know how it works. So will the Minister proactively provide more clear information about this whole new scheme to everyone who is currently engaged in the program or who is interested in being engaged in the program, whether -- well, let's just say it's the employer stream. So employers who use the program, will she direct the department to proactively engage with them and make sure they have everything they need? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly the day that the program was launched and announced on February 18th, we made sure that all these documents were found on Immigrate NWT so that both people interested in applying, whether it be employers or residents that wanted to partake in the program, could access it. I am certainly keen to hear either from employers, the Member, or residents what they feel is missing because one of the kind of key pillars of the relaunch of this program was transparency so we're wanting to make sure that this information is accessible and it is available on Immigrate NWT.
