As you may hear, I’m trying to find some accountability and transparency for the $15 million that is distributed annually. That is the reason for my question. As I said earlier, redundancy is the Achilles heel of language preservation and revitalization. Interestingly, the Department of ECE is blinded by the obvious and we now wait for a pending MEA review.

Can the Minister confirm if his department has done any evidence-based research on redundancy since implementing the over six levels of governance? If he has, why is he so reluctant to share that with the House? Thank you.

The fact is there are many players and it is a very complex situation because we are dealing with 11 official languages, nine Aboriginal languages and numerous regional organizations, all of whom are key players when it comes to language revitalization. If he’s referring to GNWT doing the same as Aboriginal governments, I can advise the Member that this is not the case.

Aboriginal governments, as I stated before, are implementing their five-year regional language plan and we are helping along the way. We are not implementing their plan, they are.

When it comes to dealing with Aboriginal governments in the process itself, this government broke down the bureaucracy by ensuring that increases in funding went directly to Aboriginal governments and other partners delivering programs and services. That’s what we’re doing. I believe in empowerment, so that’s where it’s headed. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I also believe in empowerment. But with over six levels of bureaucracy and governance for these NWT languages for preservation, I am looking for accountability and transparency. One must assume that a large portion of this $15 million budget is potentially eaten up in wages, honorariums, per diems and travel.

Can the Minister indicate, the $15 million budget, how much money actually goes into program dollars at the community level for preserving Aboriginal language and culture? Thank you.

The Member is quite correct in saying this government invests well over $15 million a year in support of Aboriginal language and culture preservation. That is our overall target. The GNWT and the federal government invest over $15 million annually through various programs and grants along the way and also support our goals and objectives.

I’m extremely proud to say that our government has empowered Aboriginal governments and educational authorities. I can highlight some of the key initiatives of the money that we have allocated directly to the communities: $8.4 million towards the educational authority for K to 12 Aboriginal language culture-based education; $6.2 million administered by the Aboriginal Secretariat; $3.5 million directly distributed to Aboriginal governments to support their language plan; $450,000 for teaching and learning centres; $621,000 for Aboriginal Language and Culture Instructor Program; $422,000 for Aboriginal language broadcasting; and $125,000 for Aboriginal language terminology contribution. These are just some of the key initiatives, key investments that we’ve come into and will continue to support them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, this is public money. All I’m looking for is some accountability and transparency. With some of the quick numbers we just heard from the Minister, that totalled well over $18 million. So we are already adding more money to this pot than we are talking about here today.

Speaking about money, under the old Canada-Northwest Territories Cooperation Agreement for French and Aboriginal Languages in the NWT, the federal government invested $1.9 million to fund nine official Aboriginal languages in the Northwest Territories. This number has been static for many years.

Can the Minister indicate what initiatives, if any, are there to renew this federal investment and bring this amount in line with our current needs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are currently in negotiations with the federal government on French language and Aboriginal language contribution agreements. We are in the final stages of signing. I am hoping by this summer. It all depends on how the federal government plays. I have met with the Minister of Canadian Heritage and also Official Languages. I met with her in December and also in January during the Ottawa Days. I stressed to her that it’s important to sign off another four- or five-year agreement. So, the message is clear to the federal Minister that we need to have a new agreement with an increase in funding. So, that’s what I’ve been pushing for and I’ll continue to do so. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Public Works, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Business Incentive Program is an ongoing program that is administered by the Arctic Energy Alliance. Last year we had $200,000. It was not

fully subscribed at that point; however, we’re going to continue with that funding, and if there’s more uptake we would consider looking around for additional funds to fund that program. It is considered to be very important. Thank you.

It’s a shame to hear that the program wasn’t fully utilized in previous years, and I do understand that the department does have a partnership with the Arctic Energy Alliance.

I was wondering when was the last time the Minister met with the Arctic Energy Alliance and looked at this policy to see what barriers and challenges are preventing our businesses from actually participating in this program that can potentially help businesses succeed, get a higher revenue but also cut down on our carbon emissions.

I’d like to ask him, when was the last time that his department and staff met with Arctic Energy Alliance to review this policy and address any barriers that might prevent businesses from accessing this funding? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The department is in regular contact with the Arctic Energy Alliance, as they deliver quite a few programs for the Government of the Northwest Territories. Specifically when this particular program was last reviewed, I don’t have that date. It seems to be a program that is working well. It is almost fully subscribed, so we expect that when we start our energy division and we start to have more communications with Arctic Energy Alliance and its clientele, we expect that all of the money that we give to Arctic Energy Alliance will be fully subscribed. Thank you.

It’s possible that there might be limits on the amount of dollars that a small business can access. We all know that when you’re putting in infrastructure such as solar energy, that high cost of shipping materials up to, let’s say, the Beaufort-Delta region and then installing them, it does come at a very high cost, and with the amount of sunlight we get during the summer there’s a short window to get any kind of profit on that.

Would the Minister also look at a solar energy program, a program that promotes the use of solar energy technologies in the NWT and work with Arctic Energy Alliance to address those challenges and how we can make it better for the small businesses to actually invest in this type of project? Thank you.

The Alternative Energy Program, which looks at all of the alternatives to energy, is a program that is currently being delivered by Arctic Energy Alliance, and that program has $800,000 to look at a lot of various programs. An example is there is a more energy-efficient hot water replacement program so that it

cuts down on energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and so on. In that program alone the Arctic Energy Alliance expended $300,000 last year. There are other programs that are available under that program and also looking at the various technologies under alternative energy, also programs that Arctic Energy Alliance delivers for the GNWT.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Under the energy department there is an area under solar energy, and for the last couple of years it has received funding in the area of maybe about $625,000.

Can I ask the Minister if that funding has been fully utilized throughout the Northwest Territories as well?

I don’t have that information here with me. I can have that information specific to the utilization of the solar energy budget given to me and I can provide that to the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement with questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The pilot program in Dauphin, Manitoba, showed that the guaranteed basic income saved money in the long run through decreased costs in health care and provided better outcomes for clients. We have all the same issues as were prevalent in Dauphin, only in spades.

Given our ongoing record of failure of income support to save money, reduce health care needs, improve graduation rates and reduce unemployment rates, all things that the Dauphin five-year pilot turned around, why is our present system failing to address these same issues here in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My department provides income security to those individuals who are in need of subsidy, we’re not failing those people. We’re providing subsidy to those individuals. When the Member talks about Manitoba, the Mincome, in 1974 they subsidized 1,000 families with monthly cheques. At that time the federal and provincial governments collectively spent $17 million in 1974. Just imagine the cost factor today.

This is an area that my department will do what we can to provide the basic needs to those individual clients based on their needs. There has been a request for an increase in our funding, so that’s what we’re after right now. In 2007 we made substantial changes, and we’re going through another round of changes in 2015-16.

The Minister failed to address the savings and the cost benefits of that program. They did invest money, and that’s what I’m suggesting we do instead of $20 million without getting any results.

In his ’13-14 review of income assistance, the Auditor General noted that in half of the NWT files examined, client eligibility was not confirmed. In half of the files, income was not verified. In 20 percent of the files requiring Productive Choices were not committed to, and in 30 percent of the files the participation in Productive Choices were not monitored. In one-third of the files, payments made to clients were inaccurate. The system is unwieldy, inaccurate, inefficient and intrusive.

Will the Minister thoroughly explore the opportunity for these issues to be resolved through the implementation of a guaranteed basic income program instead of the current approach and report back to this House?

Obviously, if we had $20 million or $30 million today this is an area we can possibly explore, but we don’t have that kind of funding available to us to date. At the same time, as I stated earlier, we are making some changes effective April 1, 2015. We are proposing to increase our overall food benefits under income assistance programming. This is from a recommendation and also suggestions from the clientele, the general public that it’s time that we change our programming, and we’ve done that in 2007 and again in 2015 to meet the needs of those individual clients. That’s what we’re doing as a department. We provide directly to those individual clients with a subsidy that’s available to them.