Thank you, Mr. Devitt. Minister Lafferty.

Mr. Chair, we will have to find out where exactly it’s based at. I know for sure that we are contributing, but we will find out which category it’s on and we’ll provide that to the Members. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate that commitment and I look forward to seeing the information.

My last question here has to do with a statement in the Minister’s remarks. It had to do with the Aurora College housing. We are closing down the unit. There are savings realized by PWS from closing the existing units. It then says that the savings from PWS will be used to fund a portion of the department’s main estimates. I found that very confusing. Could I get an explanation of what is going on here? Are we transferring money from PWS to Education or what? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Devitt.

Thanks. So I guess I have to read the sentence and ask for an explanation because I don’t understand. The Minister’s remarks said

savings realized by PWS from closing the existing units will be used to fund $469,000 of the $898,000 increase to the department’s main estimates. Is that maybe referencing PWS as opposed to ECE? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m done.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, we do have another person on this page for questioning. However, we’re going to take a short break and return on page 10-23 after the break. Thank you.

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I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we’re on page 10-23 and continuing on with questions we have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll focus my questions on the management and program support that negotiates, and monitoring training and employment provisions in the socio-economic agreements. What’s allocated here is just over $2 million. I’d like to ask the Minister how that funding is distributed throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. For that we’ll go to Mr. Devitt.

Thank you. In light of some of the recent studies in regard to the skilled workforce and some industry not meeting the standards for not having a skilled workforce that are outlined in the socio-economic agreements, would the Minister, through the management and program support, look at seeking more funding to address this concern so that we get more of the skilled workforce for residents of the Northwest Territories to get trained so that they can actually enter into some of these jobs in the industry, but also be meeting some of the standards that we set out in these socio-economic agreements. Right now I feel that the funding that’s allocated to these regional offices isn’t able to meet those requirements. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Through the SEMA agreement, Socio-Economic Monitoring Agreement, there are certain targets in place and with the three diamond mines there are some negotiations that are underway with the

potential industries that are coming on board. We have been behind a bit on the target itself. So through time we’ve developed an MOU to work with the three diamond mines. I can refer to the three diamond mines because we’ve been working actively with them and in 2008 we signed on. We’ve made some progress in that area where there’s been some training programs. The Mine Training Society that we work closely with and also Aboriginal organizations. We have funding available, as well, through the Labour Market Agreement and the Labour Market Development Agreement. Federal funding flowed through the GNWT into the communities. There is also an ASETS training program that is available through Aboriginal organizations via the federal government. There is money available, it’s just that we need to integrate and coordinate with various organizations that are out there because we need to get ready for Beaufort-Delta, Deh Cho, and also Sahtu. Those are a lot of activities happening there. There will be in the Beaufort-Delta. We want to have a trained workforce. That is an area that I’ve instructed my department to work closely with those organization groups. Mine Training Society is the one firm that we need to be prepared. We want to capture the target percentage. At this point it’s very difficult to achieve, let’s say, within the next couple of years, but on the long-term basis we want to achieve that.

I’m thinking it’s the management support offices that negotiate with industry here, so, obviously, somewhere something is happening that there’s not enough dollars or not enough marketing or promotion to get our skilled labour force to get educated and get the training that they need.

These regional offices, I imagine they probably report to headquarters, but does the standing committee or SCEDI get reports from the regional offices on how dollars are being spent, and if they are being spent in the appropriate areas such as training, or is it just an office to fund an office for staff and forms but no dollars allocated for training?

That $2.041 million is strictly geared towards the PYs in the regions. That’s an area we will continue to monitor through our department. With the training, that is additional funding that we provide through our Education, Culture and Employment department on to the Aboriginal groups or agencies or those firms that are willing to work with us to initiate a training program, such as HEO or underground training, such as the Mine Training Society. We are actively partners in those areas and we have the funding to provide that. The Mine Training Society has the funding to provide that as well. We’ve been successful to date in those areas. We feel that we need to do more. We need to prepare for those three regions that I highlighted earlier. Not only that but there is Fortune Minerals and others that are

coming on stream. The $2.41 million is strictly for PYs in the regions.

In terms of these regional offices and the management and administrative support, do they have a database of individuals or beneficiaries who have training or a certain type of training, so that when our industry is looking for a particular job they can go to the database and say we have X, Y and Z employees that have this type of training, let’s contact them and get them over to put in an application to get the training? Do these regional offices have a database for our skilled workforce?

I do believe they do. There are steering committees in place to deal with industry’s needs and also community needs based on their assessment. Through various agencies we’ve been working with as a department they have produced data on individuals that were trained, what year they were trained, and how many are available to work and so forth. We do have that information available through our department and our regional representatives.

Just in terms of the management program support, I was looking on the website and I couldn’t find any links to the specific program under the advanced education. Is there somewhere we can get more information? Where are the regional offices located in the Northwest Territories?

With representatives at the regional level I believe we cover all five regions. Other communities, as well, beyond the five regions. We can provide some detailed information on the data itself and where individuals can collect that information via if it’s not on the website where it is at. We will find that out from the regional perspective and from our department.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Page 10-23, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, advanced education, operations expenditure summary, $48.727 million.