Mr. Speaker, our economy is sort of like a freight train right now. We have a roaring economy. There’s a lot of people benefitting. At the same time there’s a lot of people who are feeling barrelled over, as we heard in some of the statements today. There’s a number of passengers on this train. Clearly, those passengers who are benefitting are industry representatives, businesses and so on.

Will the Minister invite onto this panel representatives of the social and environmental communities?

The intention of the panel is to create jobs and benefits for some of the smaller communities. The economy is heated here in Yellowknife. I think we benefit from there. We heard the Member for Tu Nedhe talking about the lack of jobs and opportunities in the communities in his riding. Our approach is…. We want to try to provide for all the communities.

I did indicate that the size of the panel would be up to 12 members. We haven’t really nailed it down in stone as to who would be represented on it. Certainly, we’d be willing to consider putting representatives, or NGOs, as the Member suggested.

Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

I’m sure the NGOs will look forward to that, and the members of the social and environmental community.

One last point of agreement I’m looking for: does the Minister agree that MLAs, as the elected representatives of — especially on this side of the House — most of the people of the Northwest Territories, probably should have had some input on this panel, and that their input might have been useful, or at least worth considering and, in fact, consistent with consensus government?

I thought that’s what I was doing with this statement. This panel has not been created. I would welcome any input the Members may have. The panel will advise me on areas within my responsibility.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi. Mr. Speaker, today I spoke of the unemployment and employment picture in Tu

Nedhe communities. I’d like to follow up with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

The employment section of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment in Yellowknife has career development officers who work closely with Income Support officers as a part of the Income Support Program. How does the department plan to reconcile the problem as far as career development in small communities where there are no career development officers?

Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do recognize the small communities that may not have career development officers, but they are served out of regional offices. Specifically on Lutselk’e and Fort Res, they are being serviced out of the South Slave regional office. There is also, specifically with Lutselk’e…. We have a joint partnership with DEAS, schools and Aurora College.

Just on the career development alone, those officers do provide counselling and, also, workshops in the communities that deal with resume writing, budgeting and educational planning. We do provide those services to the communities of Tu Nedhe and also other small communities.

What tools do the career development officers have? I know the Minister’s responding as to what they do, but what tools do they have at their disposal for dealing with industry replacing Income Support clients and jobs with industry and industry-related employers?

Our career development officers from the regional perspectives and also the community level have direct contact with the industry, our government — the GNWT, ECE department — and with the local First Nations organizations and also with Income Support — the clients, if that’s the case. So they are providing various workshops, like I said earlier, providing certain tools for individuals to enter the workforce, whether it be upgrading or taking on a training-on-the-job program.

Mr. Speaker, we do provide Communities Skills for Work, which prepares our Northerners for work in the workplace, and also community literacy projects, which we provide to the communities. There is also a literacy counsellor at the community level who does provide assistance to the community members. The Community Skills for Work provides education training specifically for people with low literacy skills. We do highlight those in the most isolated communities — low literacy skills. We tend to work with the focus on those individuals at the community level.

Does the department have, as a standard, an assessment of the skills of the unemployed people in the smaller communities — or unemployed people, period, I suppose?

We do have data on information that the Member’s referring to. I’ll be more than willing to share that with the Member. It’s been updated every now and then from certain communities. In some communities there is high unemployment. Some communities, specifically on training and education, the post secondarys…. We do have that data at our Department of ECE at our disposal.

There’s been some changes within the Income Support area. We are developing a new initiative, “ready to work,” for those individuals who are employable. So that’s one of our initiatives at Education, Culture and Employment. I’ll be more than willing to share that with the committee and the Member once it’s produced. I’m also willing to share that information the Member has requested, certainly.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Mr.

Speaker, in my Member’s

statement I spoke about the increased difficulty the communities are having in dealing with the outdated existing Dene fonts with the current computer software that is out there. The lack of commitment from this government to help solve this technical challenge our language communities are having and try to find ways to be able to work with those communities….

My question to the Minister is: does he agree that he is responsible for the maintenance and revitalization of aboriginal languages and the ability to use the Dene font in developing curriculum, such as school curriculum, and to provide those community organizations with the tools to do their jobs?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

It is important to deal with this particular issue the Member has raised. One of the areas we’ve been dealing with is the language boards: the Aboriginal Language Revitalization Board and the Official Languages Board, which deals directly with the community and the

leadership at the community level — the educational leadership.

Certainly this is one of the priorities of the group we work closely with and with our department. The Dene font the Member has referred to has been discussed for a number of years now, as the Member alluded to. The Dene fonts available may have been outdated, but that has been recognized from the language groups. We are in the process of having a meeting this fall to deal with that matter. Mahsi.

As I also illustrated in my comments on this matter, this has been going on for some time. I sat on a committee five years ago that recommended this be dealt with. Yet today, we’re still talking about it. It has to do with trying to find the technology to, basically, deal with existing software that’s being used in computers so they’re able to use that software to deal with the Dene fonts.

I’d like to ask the Minister, exactly, does he have the capacity in his department, or should he find an expert in that area to deal with the computer software challenges we’re facing in regard to…? The technology is the problem; it’s not the meeting with the language groups. I’d like to ask the Minister: do you have the capacity to deal with this through the technical difficulty?

Mr. Speaker, I think we do have that capacity with the Official Languages Board giving us some advice on moving forward with this particular piece of work. It is important for us. We are, as a department, looking at the technology sources. The First Dene and also the WinMac Dene fonts are in the Macintosh area. So we are moving into today’s technology. That is what we are faced with today. We are looking at options to move forward on this particular item on Dene fonts. It is recognized that we need to work with that. That’s what the aboriginal language groups are working with, with our department. Mahsi.

Short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regard to this issue I have been approached by the Gwich’in cultural institute to raise this issue in the House. They’ve been working with the department, making recommendations. They’ve even suggested people who have that expertise to work with their department who are working in other jurisdictions in Canada. I’d like to ask the Minister: why aren’t you taking the advice of those language organizations that have made these recommendations and acting on them?

I think we are acting on it. The recommendations that were brought forward by previous governments will be compiled. Those types of discussion will happen August 12–13, 2008, here in Yellowknife. It is an important

discussion that we want to move forward on. Like we’ve said, this has been ongoing for a number of years now. I think it’s time to move forward. I’m looking to that, and my department is looking forward to working with the aboriginal groups on this issue. Mahsi.