I don’t think the Minister understood what I was asking. There was an increase of nine positions from last budget year to this one. Five of them are service officers. The other four are new positions. What are they? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, there are five positions, employment service officers, and one employment service officer for a PY in Behchoko is recorded as North Slave. There’s also an assistant deputy minister position that is added to the aid and review of supervision of corporate services. That’s Mr. Lovely here. Three French language translators are responsible for the implementation of the department’s French language operating plan. Mahsi.

Mr. Chair, just to confirm, that’s three translators and an assistant deputy minister. Are they the four new positions in addition to the service officers? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, yes, that’s correct.

Thanks to the Minister. So, there are five new positions that are being decentralized, the service officers. The other four positions that he’s mentioned, the two linguists and the two registrars, I guess, are those positions filled at the moment? Thank you.

At this point they’re not filled yet. Mahsi.

I guess I would like to know from the Minister, if these positions are not filled, will they be decentralized first and then filled, or will they be filled and then decentralized? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, part of the plan is to decentralize these positions and then fill the positions from there. Mahsi.

That’s good. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I’m done.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, we’re on page 59, active position summary, information item. Any questions?

Thank you, committee. Page 61, corporate management. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few questions here. I see the department or this activity includes the overall development, design and planning of capital infrastructure projects. As we know, there’s been a real paucity of infrastructure for the Department of Education over the last three years in the order of 2 or 3 percent of the infrastructure budget. I’m wondering, given the many requests the Minister has heard, at least for

the region I’m in, can we expect that there will be significant proposals coming forward to address some of the infrastructure deficiencies we see in, for example, some of the schools in Yellowknife and other areas. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll go to Mr. Lovely.

Thank you, Mr. Lovely. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you. I understand the theory there. Of course, there’s a record of us going through that process and then having them fall off that list. I’m just wondering: is the Minister planning on pushing for some capital infrastructure projects that are significant and above the 2 or 3 percent of government infrastructure projects for 2015-16? Oh, I guess we’ve already proved that. Maybe I better make it the next year. How many years? Oh, my gosh. We have so many years of little to no infrastructure investment by this department, one of our biggest…our second biggest department, I think. Let’s look forward a little bit, and maybe this is what it takes is this sort of lead time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi,Mr. Chair. As you are probably aware, over the years we had a number of major infrastructures in the past. Now that we’re going through another process of infrastructure debates these coming few months, obviously those high priorities will be brought forward. At the end of the day, the decision will be made by the committee that’s been established to deal with the capital infrastructure. We as the department bring forward our priority that we feel should be addressed within the schools or at the community level. We’ll continue to push that forward as part of the process. Like I said, at the end of the day, the decision has to come down from the capital planning, the committee that decides on the process itself.

Thanks to the Minister for that response. I appreciate, I guess, that I now know I am dealing with this in a timely way, given that this will be discussed in the next few months. So, I guess I would ask the Minister, is he prepared to push for school projects to finally be addressed in Yellowknife and including Aurora College to try and

get them on the capital as soon as possible as a priority of this department?

There is, obviously, a 20-year plan for schools, Yellowknife and also across the Northwest Territories Based on that, if there is a need for a retrofit or a renovation or replacement of schools, those are discussions that we need to have, my department and the PWS, and put into the hopper of the capital planning process. I don’t have that information in front of me. We will be debating that. We will be putting forward a proposal on the infrastructure that will be coming forward. What the Member is referring to, obviously the Yellowknife area, if there is going to be any infrastructure coming down the hopper, those are decisions that we need to have as a department and we need to have discussion. It is coming forward as part of the planning process.

I guess I’ll have to leave it at that. Again, I’m not encouraged. This Minister has absolutely failed our education infrastructure in this area and the need just accumulates year after year, as he well knows.

The second area I want to talk about is the reform and innovation section that leads major innovation and reform initiatives. I’d like to talk a little bit about the possibility of a guaranteed basic income initiative. Would the Minister consider looking at that concept, looking at the research that’s been done, looking at the Dauphin study and the gains that were achieved and lasted for 13 years, and considering how it might be tested as an innovative way to address some of our income assistance needs and so on in one of our regions, and I don’t have a druthers on which region.

I think there is considerable interest in this tool across the country and internationally, and I think partly because of the clear evidence of the Dauphin study. They found that even those families, and this was a top-up of basic income, so for many families they didn’t get any dollars. It was just that they had the assurance that if their income fell below a certain amount they would get topped up. Simply that assurance, that security had almost the same effect. Higher graduation rates. Women chose to have children in later years. They delayed having children for a few years. Health benefits and so on. Absolutely amazing benefits, the sort of benefits that we are looking for. I’m serious when I ask the Minister if he would look into it and consider a test case in the Northwest Territories. I don’t think it would be any more expensive than our rapidly increasing income assistance budget, but perhaps an assessment could look at that.

I just want to reflect back on, obviously, the infrastructure. Obviously, we have not failed as a department. We spend millions on infrastructure such as Inuvik’s East Three School, the Tulita school, brand new schools.

We shouldn’t be using those terms when we’ve done so much as a department. We will continue to push that forward. We’re at the end of our Assembly. Usually when the capital infrastructure such as a huge initiative that is coming forward, obviously, it is the beginning of a new term.

At the same time, if there is a request, I would consider looking at a guaranteed income support for clientele. We have been working through a Labour Market Development Agreement that we have. There is flexibility there where having a focus on individuals that can pursue workforce placements. I will continue to push that forward because it’s part of the Canada Job Fund and provided flexibility for our department to focus on those individuals that fall through the cracks, individuals that are employable. To have another area of initiative where a guaranteed income support for all people of the Northwest Territories, we can look at it and see where that takes us, how much it’s going to cost us at the initial stage.

There was an example in Manitoba, $17 million in 1974, 1,000 people. If we’re looking at 1,000 people at today’s number, that’s very substantial to guarantee income. But we offset income, as well, through the Labour Market Agreement. We’re doing that already. Maybe there is room for improvement. Obviously, that’s an area that my department will certainly explore. Having those 3,100 cases of individual clientele, obviously, the number we like to see it go down. We like to see those numbers going to enter workforce development. Those will be my goals and objectives as the Minister responsible to make sure those individuals are ready with the tools that are required to enter the workforce.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Committee, we’re on page 61, corporate management, operations expenditure summary. Ms. Bisaro.