Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And continuing on this thread, one resident that wrote to committee raised the fact of while the department has frequently highlighted that the government is not representative of the full population of the NWT, the issue at hand is that of the available workforce. So, Mr. Speaker, why is the department not using the demographics of the available workforce as a way to measure representation as it moves forward with this policy? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier this afternoon we received -- Standing Committee on Government Operations received a briefing on the Indigenous employment policy. Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns I've heard, one of the main concerns, is from families with children schooled in the NWT returning to university who are concern their opportunities for employment will now be limited. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister discuss how students who previously benefitted from P2 status will still have opportunities for employment with the GNWT. Mr. Speaker, will we still be prioritizing our...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. What's going on next to me here; what's all this waving about?

Mr. Chair, the next question I had was when will the program review of the SEED policy be completed? And also how will the department ensure that SEED funding supports mentorship and capacity building? Thank you -- or, actually, you know what, let's go one question at a time. When will the program review of the SEED policy be completed? Thank you.

You don't have a clever pun?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And can the Minister discuss what kind of expert economic analysis is going to be applied to the economic visioning in particular -- yeah, and how it's going to kind of lead into investment strategy. I am curious to hear because, you know, the Minister will remember I made a statement about this a number of sittings ago. I was speaking about the Greenland Economic Council and how they applied economic analysis of the current state of Greenland and how, you know, targeted investment in certain areas would help change that and move things along. I would notice that Ontario...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm a bit surprised to hear the ambitious timeline considering it's spring of this year that we're already hoping to have this out the door by fall, although I'm not going to sit here and discourage the department from getting work done quickly. And I appreciate the department noting the need for and development of an investment strategy following development of the vision. And I think that's a great -- you know, that's a great order of operations there. You want to establish the vision and then what are you going to do to implement it. So great planning there.

The only...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to highlight one other thing that was in the What We Heard report that I appreciate the Minister posting and that was noted that in the absence of Aurora College offering local post-secondary programming, communities have started forming partnerships with other institutions from outside the territory such as University of Alberta, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Yukon University. So it seems that the college has already, you know, been pushed away or stepped away from this issue. So I'm curious to hear more detail in the coming months, or even...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to continue on the thread that the Member for Yellowknife North brought into the House this afternoon and talk about the community learning centres which we had a presentation about this morning.

Mr. Speaker, it was noted that there's significant challenges faced by the centres. So, Mr. Speaker, why did the department not work with the college to pursue a more hybridized model that might open the door for the college for cost sharing operation of the buildings and partnering in ways that were mentioned by the Member for Yellowknife North? There's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to seek unanimous consent to move item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery, up to the current motion, Mr. Speaker.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that's it. Give me one second here. Sorry, I've got like four pages of notes. Yeah, no, I wanted to ask a couple more questions about SEED. So how will the department ensure that SEED funding supports mentorship and capacity building through this review? Thank you.