Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are a lot of important comments that have been initiated here that we will certainly continue to work with. In the Sahtu region, of course, the high school grads have been brought to our attention. We do provide tools for the students to continue on with their high school and also post-secondary. There are other options that are available to the students that we’ve talked about in the past, but we will continue to provide the funding to the school boards in that respective region and other regions as well.

At the same time, Mr. Chair, there is a concern about students returning to the community and not working, but there are productive choices that they have to make as well. The community offers courses that they could certainly take on in order to further upgrade their schooling if that’s required.

That’s the area that we continue to improve on at the community level.

Income support, of course, there is a 20 percent increase in caseloads due to the fact that the economy is on the downturn. Two years back, as the Member alluded to, everything was good. Yes, it was when we were having high employment in the communities and so forth, but lately the economy is going down. At the same time, we are investing in various areas such as summer employment for small communities. That will certainly capture some attention in the small communities. So I think that certainly is a worthwhile initiative.

On the trades investment that the Member for Sahtu has touched on, we are investing heavily in trades. Since the budget address, and even this time around in trades and labour market training, approximately $600,000 that we’ve initiated. That will be before us to discuss further. So we need to be prepared. We need to have our own people with the right tools to enter the workforce, whether it be the diamond mines, the pipeline, or even our government, the community governments and municipalities. Those are the areas we continue to provide training dollars and working with other partners as well.

Also the traditional food has been addressed here. It could be part of the nutritious food items. There was a discussion on the milk subsidy and the food basket and so forth. That is an area of interest to us that we continue to work with. We will discuss it further when we talk about nutrition, the $4,000 that has been allocated. Mr. Chairman, I can certainly elaborate more at that level.

The teachers, the funds are not adequate has been addressed. Yes, our wish is to have more teachers in all schools, all 49 schools that we have in the Northwest Territories. We would love to have more teachers, but it is a challenge, Mr. Chairman. As the Member alluded to, it could cause several million dollars per region or more, but we do provide funding to deliver those teaching instructions at the community level in the regions. At the same time, on the side, we are developing plans through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. There will certainly be some initiatives coming out of that. We have already initiated some of them to deal with the enrolment issue, because aboriginal student achievement covers a vast variety of challenges that are before us in all communities. I am looking forward to them, Mr. Chairman. They all come out of the committee’s report.

Again, the elders in school, the Member has addressed this to my attention. We are collectively working closely with other organizations and businesses or even organizations at the community level if they could take on the elders so there is no impact on their pension. Those are options that we

are currently working with. It looks very positive. Definitely it will be part of the next business planning cycle. I want to plant a seed. I know the Member is getting impatient, but we want to do this even before this Assembly is over and done with.

Definitely that is my commitment to this House, that I want to work with the organizations so they could take it on and by all means to satisfy us and if the organization is satisfied, then we will go that avenue.

Mr. Chairman, aboriginal language, the funds, the Member spoke to the lapse. Those are the areas that we will continue to monitor. It is the language groups that we work with, as I indicated earlier today in the House. There needs to be collaboration and also consistent meetings that need to take place. Fortunately, it has been happening. We need to set our targets, our objectives, our priorities. We will continue to strengthen that within our department, to work with the language board to expedite the application process and whatnot. Mr. Chairman, that is a concern to me as well. I am glad the Member is raising that issue.

The public housing transfer has been in the process. Clearly, we want to have a smooth transition. The rent scale that has been discussed here, of course, is a housing area. We have the Minister responsible for Housing who will be taking over that, but we will be working closely together on the transfer of the program.

The community learning centres, of course, there is great news about the 33 communities. They will be getting upgrades through the federal funding, but those are areas that we are continuing to focus in all communities. Some community learning centres are fairly old and some are capacity issues. Mr. Chairman, we are continuing to work closely with the Aurora College, the college themselves, because it is under their leadership, the board of governors. So that has been identified already and we will continue to work with that.

The library funds were addressed for Fort Simpson, that consideration of being a regional centre. Mr. Chairman, we do have funding that has been allocated to the communities. Simpson is one of them. We do have annual funding that is allocated to Fort Simpson. We continue to increase the funds as it looks now. Mr. Chairman, the areas that we can certainly look further into, the Simpson and other community libraries, because they questioned about the regional status. I think it is up for discussion.

Enhancing education in small communities, on-line courses have been addressed. That is the area that we are certainly very interested in delivering more, broadening our Internet service capability into the 33 communities that we service. We have an educational system that we want to have a separate system, but working with TSC, as well, on

how we can improve in those areas. It can have the capability of on-line programs in communities such as Paulatuk or Tsiigehtchic in the small, isolated communities. So we are really pushing for that, Mr. Chairman.

There is also a question about the grade 8s and grade extension, the boarding, students to board in different locations. This is an area that we need to work with the education council because... Then again, we did provide the money, the funds. The Member discussed with similar to Fort Smith leadership program. It is an independently run business that has been initiated. It is a very successful program. By all means, if other regions are willing to take it on as independent sort of like a business run, we will certainly be looking at possibly contributing that towards similar to the Fort Smith leadership program.

Mr. Chairman, the elders callback has been addressed. It is not the first time Members are addressing that with us. We are fully aware of it. The Member is right about our Justice department looking into it further. If it is business arm funding or is it through land claims? Is there a cost or is it income exempt? So those are areas that we are exploring as we speak. This will be brought forward to the Cabinet for further discussion. Mr. Chairman, just so the Member is aware, we are not ignoring this area.

The social work goes back to Income Support. I am not sure where that is coming from. We do have income support client service officers that are very dedicated and committed to providing the valuable services that they continue to provide and we have done a lot of work in this area. We continue to improve in those areas, Mr. Chairman. There are other challenging tasks that are before us at times, but we deal with this on a case-by-case basis.

The junior kindergarten has been brought up before, investment up front, and also the stabilizing funding. Those are the discussions that we have had in the past with other Members as well. We met with certain organizations. They threw that at us, as well, where we should fund them to offset the cost of certain cost factors, I guess, not to depend on enrolment. But they are under some circumstances, where some of the facilities will be fully utilized, maxed out in the capacity, but at times there will be one or two students in a centre or none. Do we continue to provide the funding to that organization if there’s no attendance? So those are the discussions that we need to have as we go forward.

Arts development, the tourism that the Members talked about regarding the pilots through Buffalo, we’ve increased our funding over the years and ITI also has various pots of funds to subsidize some of these initiatives. So, Mr. Chair, we’ll continue to highlight that as we go forward. So those are just a

summary of what the Members have addressed as their opening comments. Mahsi.