Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, my issue is around the security of the community. We have had a lot of instances where we have communities with prohibition orders. They’ve passed them, and they look for the enforcement side of those prohibition orders. I think we're seeing that a lot of the people are wondering why they even voted in the first place.

Again, I’d like to ask the Minister if he can ask the RCMP, or whoever is in charge, if they can increase their presence — but, more importantly, allow the communities to work with them to ensure they do have a presence in our communities and also ensure that they are enforcing those prohibition orders, especially for those communities that have passed such an order.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll certainly make a commitment here to deal with the scheduled visits to the communities. I’ll work closely with the RCMP G Division. We do have schedules in place. We need to monitor those schedules. My department will certainly follow up with that, and I will certainly get back to the Member on this particular item.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Speaker, earlier today I talked about raising the bar of our trades programs here in the North by offering training that doesn’t exist today. That training would be the Red Seal Program for a cooking school. I had the chance and the privilege to bring the Minister down to a facility here in Yellowknife run by Chef Pierre, to see his facility and what could be done to elevate trades programs here in the North.

My question to the Minister of ECE is: would he be willing to look at this possibility of moving forward on implementing a cooking trades program here in the Northwest Territories, to run through Aurora College?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Lafferty.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the Member for inviting me to tour the facility. At this time we do have our department staff and our Aurora College staff, and possibly the chairpersons, visiting the facility. I want them to see what kind of facility there is there. So from there, we can talk about the process.

Certainly, the Member wants to push this forward, but we need to sit down and develop plans. We need to work with the industries as well. It has to be based on the needs of the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, I compliment Aurora College for having their camp cook program that they operate in their existing programming, but I think it’s time that we can expect more and demand more.

The Minister has said that he would be looking at this situation. When can I

get some type of

commitment that they will bring down the Aurora College board and the officials to take a serious look at the nuts and bolts of this operation, to see if this is something we can do here in the Territories?

Mr. Speaker, the tour happened just before session, so I told the Member that I will certainly sit down with my department and work out a plan of when the scheduled visit will be. It would have to be probably sometime after session, to have them tour the facility and then sit down and start planning what we can do next. Certainly the Member will be involved in that, and other Members who are interested.

The Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Human Resources. Today I spoke about counselling services in Lutselk’e and made reference to the front-line staff.

With Lutselk’e having over 95 per cent — and Fort Resolution having over 90

per

cent — of its

population aboriginal, can the Minister tell me if the front-line professionals with Health and Social Services who work in these aboriginal communities are mandated to have cross-cultural training?

The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, with the difficulty in attracting some of the front-line workers, it’s certainly something that we would like to see — that they have cross-cultural training. But unfortunately, the reality is that sometimes this cross-cultural training is not made available until after the fact. The ideal would be for front-line workers to receive cross-cultural training.

Mr. Speaker, would the Minister commit to reviewing the situation to ensure that front-line staff such as Health and Social Services workers are properly trained and culturally sensitive to their respective working environments?

Mr. Speaker, I’ve worked in a number of environments where cross-cultural training was provided across the board, and it was a requirement for not only front-line employees but all employees to take cross-cultural awareness training.

This is certainly an area that I think is important, certainly for people who are new to the North and new to the communities. We develop training programs, and we will make sure that this service continues to be provided.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm whether the boards and agencies for which Human Resources is responsible for providing service get the same response and attention as the regular departments do?

Mr.

Speaker, boards and

agencies generally operate on a different basis. I think that we would certainly request that the Health Minister direct boards and agencies to deal with cultural awareness, but the boards are independent and would have to make that kind of decision themselves.

It’s an area where it’s not as straightforward as just asking them to fulfill requirements with regard to

cultural awareness. But that’s something that I’ll discuss with the Minister of Health.

Final short supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, I shifted gears just slightly there. My question was more about the service being provided to boards and agencies from the Department of Human Resources, just strictly on hiring versus the services provided to the departments. I just wanted to know if there was a difference in the Department of HR’s role when hiring for boards and agencies versus hiring for departments.

Mr. Speaker, HR’s role is not different. It’s just that we may take a different approach with some of the larger departments and some of the larger boards in how we approach the staffing for boards and agencies.

Thank you, Minister. The Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Minister Lafferty.

Mr. Speaker, there is a review that’s been undertaken, and that review should be completed sometime early next month, I do believe. Once we have that package, then we can certainly discuss it with the Member.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for that timeline. I’ve got 18 full-time staff and some casuals in there depending on me to bring their concerns forward.

I’d like to ask the Minister: who is doing the report? Is it being done by the department — which I could have a problem with, because they might use that to justify closing the facility — or is it done by an independent engineer?