Mr. Chair, certainly any additional funding from the federal government is always welcome. Not only that, Mr. Chair, we are working with other southern institutions as well, and I think we’re going to continue to make progress in that area where we have a teacher degree program, nursing degree, and we are looking at other areas of professions as well. Not only that, but we need to fully utilize and enhance our Aurora Research Institute where they can deliver traditional aspects as well, traditional programming that Members around the table have stressed over and over in the past. I think we can certainly highlight those key areas and continue to work with the federal government to access any innovative or creative funding that could be available. Yes, we will continue to push in that area. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Next on my list is Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple comments here. One has to do with the removal of the contribution to the Skills Canada program. I know that Mr. Bromley has mentioned it, so I’ll just simply say that I am dismayed that that money has been removed and I’m hopeful that the Minister will see his way to putting it back in.

I wanted to ask the Minister relative to the Immigrant Nominee Program, we were advised when we did business plans that it’s in the works and the program is being developed. I would like to know from the Minister if he can advise when this program will be up and running and in effect. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.

Mr. Chair, that has been in the works for quite some time now, a few months, and we are trying to accelerate that to at least deliver that this summer. We’re hoping that it can be introduced this summer and then work with the business alliance in communities that we serve. Yes, the sooner the better. This summer we’re hoping that it will be introduced. Mahsi.

I guess this summer is better than not at all, but I would hope that the department would move it along as quickly as possible.

I mentioned this when we reviewed business plans, but I am a little concerned about the funding for trades training, which is kind of scattered about throughout the department’s spending. There is some in high schools, there’s some for women, there’s some in advanced education at the college and so on. I think there are about four or five different spots where apprenticeship and trades type training is mentioned. I just wanted to express my concern about a lack of coordination. I know the Minister seems to feel that everything is okay, but it seems to me that we’d be better off, again, putting the money in one place and administering it from one central location so that everybody knows who’s doing what to whom and how often. I think it should be looked at. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, certainly we think that everything’s okay, but there’s always room for improvement. Yes, we’ll take these into consideration as well. We need to coordinate as effectively as we can in the apprenticeship area, so, yes, we’ll take those Members’ comments into consideration. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. We’re on page 10-23, activity summary, advanced education and careers, operations expenditure summary, $42.476 million.

Moving along to page 10-24. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. A motion has been called. The motion is being distributed.

Committee, the motion has been distributed and the motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We’ve been in touch with the Minister on this. We’ve had discussions; we’ve had back and forths. During the business plans the Minister gave us early indication that he was considering dropping this and he proposed three conditions under which he would reconsider it. We’ve been in touch with Skills Canada and I’m happy to report that those conditions are fully met. The first one that the Minister required was an expansion across the Northwest Territories, the second a focus on aboriginal youth and the third a focus on young women of the Skills Canada programs.

Clearly, Mr. Speaker, we provided the Minister with evidence that, in fact, the majority of their youth are aboriginal. They are a bit challenged in the secondary educational level category and they have proposed a solution to that. They’ve noted that aboriginal youth are disproportionately low among high school youth and the best way to change this is with more community programs like Skills Club, which is a program that they support. They are now trying to implement more of those to address that, noting that they are somewhat limited by the resources that are available.

As for targeting young women, the Skills Canada hosts an annual territorial Young Women’s Conference, which they’ve done for the last eight years. They also hold a similar conference for boys. They found that holding them separate is actually more effective. They have developed a new Regional Youth Conference in the Sahtu, speaking to their expansion of programs within their limited resources across the Northwest Territories. The Sahtu program is specifically intended to involve both young men and young women, but dealing with them in separate workshops.

Finally, the increase for aboriginal youth, there is a major desire to increase the access of these programs to aboriginal youth. To that end, they are developing the community Skills Clubs and they are recognizing the female-only programming is important and necessary, but they also know that it should be balanced with similar opportunities for males as they do with all their youth conferences.

Skills Canada is a program of two people but they have expanded it under contract to three people last year, this current year. That third person has been a major help in getting this expansion on the ground to other parts of the Northwest Territories. That third person, if they do not get the support, will, of course, disappear and that program will be contracted significantly.

This is a fairly straightforward, not a large ticket item, but some significant dollars here. There is strong support for getting these dollars reinstated here. The Minister laid out some conditions.

Obviously, Skills Canada is working hard to meet those and has the committee’s support. On that basis, I’ll be happy to leave it at that, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ve had the distinct pleasure of helping Skills Canada a few times on some of their events. As well, I’ve had the chance to help mentor some of the youth that have come to learn about politics, and I think it’s a strong organization that helps young people and I think it could do a lot for the Territories if we continue to support this program.

I know they were probably looking for something they could cut, in the sense of balancing budgets, and I can appreciate that from a finance point of view, but ultimately what we’re doing is we’re hurting youth programs, youth across our North that we really want to continue to strive to give better skills and do more for. I mean, everywhere I turn we talk about trying to empower our younger generation to get plugged in, get good careers, get good experience, learn and contribute to society, and this program is the type of program that offers that. By allowing this deletion to go through, we would be speaking completely to the opposite of some of the principles of why many of us ran here, which is to help empower that generation to then lead when it is their turn. Mr. Chairman, I will be supporting this motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion.

Question has been called.

---Carried

We’re on page 10-24, activity summary, advanced education and careers, grants and contributions, contributions, $32.4 million.

Page 10-25, which is an information item, advanced education and careers, active positions.

Page 10-27, activity summary, income security, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Krutko.

Again, Mr. Chairman, my question is in regard to the $33.9 million regarding the public

housing subsidy. I’d like to hear from the Minister what exactly that money is intended for.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Lafferty.