Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The information that we do have, we have 13 summer students within Education, Culture and Employment. Also, there will be additional student employment within the board operations at the regional level. Mahsi.

Thank you. I’m glad the Minister brought up the boards. I’m wondering what proactive steps, if any, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is taking overall to encourage all the health boards out there to hire as many students as possible. That way we would be getting some students into the community, which I think would be great.

Mahsi. This particular area is always of interest for us, because we have to fill that capacity at the community level and at the regional level. We do enforce and also have a thorough discussion with the education boards to have their targets, specific numbers of students that should be hired on an annual basis, as we do within our GNWT department. So we’ll continue to stress that on an annual basis when it comes to December-January period. Mahsi.

For the record, in my previous question I meant education boards, not health boards. This department is one of the largest departments that we have and it’s responsible for education, culture, and employment. I’m wondering in the employment capacity of this department if this department is taking any proactive action to work with businesses throughout the Territories to find ways to encourage them to employ summer students themselves.

That’s one of our objectives, is to work with other potential business partners, as well. We deal with whether it be the Mine Training Society or other NGOs and the business arm. We promote more of a building capacity with the students being hired. Even within our department having a job shadowing and other areas. Definitely those are areas that we need to continue to stress with the potential business partners and we’ll continue to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Given that Education, Culture and Employment is one of our largest departments and it has a

mandate for education and employment -- I’ve already indicated that the department hired 20 students last year -- and given that it has quite possibly one of the largest budgets in this government, I’m hoping that the Minister will meet or beat their previous targets. The Minister has already heard this terminology, but I’d like to say if any department out there can beat their target from last year of 20, it should be Education, Culture and Employment, given the sheer size of the department and the fact it has one of the largest budgets. I would like the Minister today to commit to at least meeting the 20, but preferably beating it and increasing the number of summer students that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment hires during this summer.

I think we can either meet or exceed the number that we have, especially when we count the money that we allocate to the education board operations in the regional level. Most of our money, the $300 million, goes to the board operations. If we count those students at that level, I’m sure that we can exceed the numbers that are before us from last year on the ECE area. Those are the areas we need to stress and continue to work with on an annual basis.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll be directing my questions to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger. I, too, am concerned by the summer student hire, or I should say lack of hiring thus far. My first question to the Minister of Finance is: the Department of Finance hired nine summer students last year; to date, how many students have they hired this year both in the territorial capital as well as the regions?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My list tells me we’ve hired nine, all in Yellowknife.

I’d like to thank the Minister. Is the Department of Finance planning to hire more summer students by the end of summer and are they looking to expand into the regions?

There’s a modest presence in the regions and I would anticipate that since it’s now May, almost June, that we’ve probably maxed out, but I would have to

check with the department to see if we anticipate exceeding last year’s number of nine.

Would the Minister be willing to commit today that his mandate would be to encourage his Department of Finance, both in the capital as well as in the regions, to hire more summer students if they could make those opportunities available for them?

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Public Works and Services. I know earlier he anticipated the questions and tried to generalize everything, but specifically to his department, Public Works and Services hired 17 summer students last year. To date, how many have they hired?

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I answered that question. More specific, we have hired 13 students this year. Our target, again, is to try to max the hire from last year. Of course, we have a budget that we have to follow and it’s going to be a challenge, but I’ve instructed our staff to try to achieve the 17 that we hired last year.

That was a nice clear answer by the Minister and the commitment level from his department, then, throughout the whole hour has been very good discussion and commitment from all the Ministers. Just one last follow-up question. Within Public Works and Services, was there a particular number for the Nahendeh region?

The answer is no. Our practice is to try to hire students based on their program of study. If there are students who are planning to be architects, engineers, information technology students, those are the ones we focus on. Sometimes the level of applicants in those areas is not the highest; then we move into the trades and try to hire people in those areas. If there’s still a void in our numbers, then we’ll hire labour positions.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.