Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t sit on the Social Programs committee so I haven’t had very extensive knowledge of what this repeal and revision specifically pertains to. One thing I would like to ask of the Minister, and I guess this is a general comment but I will explain a situation related to apprenticeships that I would like to get some clarification on and then I guess the Minister can tell me if this has anything to do with the consideration that is before the House now and was before the Standing Committee on Social Programs.
Mr. Chairman, not every formal training session for the various apprenticeships is available in the Northwest Territories thus it requires people to seek some of their theory training outside of the Northwest Territories in neighbouring jurisdictions; I would suggest most often Alberta. I would like to know, I guess, if any thought had been given to streamlining the processes between Alberta’s legislation on apprenticeships and what the Northwest Territories has in place.
One area where it is different, I might suggest, would be in how the hours are calculated and accumulated and when those hours of work need to take place between the various years of apprenticeship. It is my understanding that in the Northwest Territories, the hours accumulated that go towards the certification in a trade can be accumulated, for lack of a better word, they don’t have to be at a time... Okay, if you need X number of hours between year one and year two, that is how it would be in Alberta, but in the Northwest Territories apparently you could accumulate a lot of hours that could then be allocated to various years of the apprenticeship training. That has an impact on apprentices in the Northwest Territories. Just that difference and I am sure there are other differences as well.
I guess my question to the Minister and his staff is whether or not, though any of those kinds of efficiencies or compatibilities with a neighbouring jurisdiction where a lot of NWT residents receive their certification training, whether or not any of those things were considered. Thank you, Mr. Chairman