Thank you. We will resume after a brief break.

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I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. The next department before us is the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to ask Minister Lafferty if he would like to present his opening comments on the department. Minister Lafferty.

I am pleased to present the 2015-16 Main Estimates for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. This budget strives to strike a balance between being mindful of the economic outlook of the NWT and making critical investments in key areas. These include early childhood development, education renewal, reducing the cost of living, improving support to those most vulnerable and bringing services closer to the people. Overall, the department’s estimates propose an increase of $4.2 million, or 1.4 percent, over the restated 2014-2015 Estimates. These estimates continue to support the objectives of limiting expenditure growth in order to sustain the long-term sustainability of the fiscal framework. Despite the government-wide fiscal situation, ECE’s budget identifies significant investments. Either through re-profiled or new funding, ECE will invest in key initiatives all of which will have tangible, direct and concrete benefits for the people we serve.

Highlights of the proposed estimates show that ECE is not standing still. They include: • $1.75 million to increase benefits for food,

clothing and other incidental expenses. This will ensure income assistance clients receive adequate benefits to meet their needs and to stay current with the cost of living. This amount is part of the planned $6.6 million investment to

be phased in over the next four years. It will provide a direct benefit to those most in need.

• $548,000 for increased costs associated with

the Income Assistance program. This is largely coming from increased client uptake and projected increases for rent, fuel and utilities.

• $390,000 to be invested in the Early Childhood

Staff Grant Program for licenced daycare centre staff. This $900,000 program will begin to address the fact that early childhood staff are paid some of the lowest wages in the country. It marks a real benefit to the people who care for children.

• a two-year pilot project to create five new

employment service officer positions for each region of the NWT. This will reduce income assistance caseloads by providing intensive individual support to targeted income assistance clients in finding work or entering training programs. This initiative not only supports our government’s decentralization objective but improves services to people in our communities and regions.

• a transfer of $1.6 million to the NWT Housing

Corporation to add 75 new public housing units specifically for income assistance recipients. This cost neutral program will provide income assistance clients in new public housing units with decreased rent. It will also allow for an easier transition to the workforce because of the NWTHC’s graduated rent to income scheme.

• a reduction of $1.95 million as part of the

government-wide expenditure reduction in 2015-2016. This money comes from various discretionary areas internally throughout the department, paying attention to avoid program cuts that affect people. I also note that we have sheltered education authorities and the Aurora College from passive restraint.

• $4.7 million for Collective Agreement increases

for education authorities, the Aurora College and the department.

The proposed departmental estimates continue to support the priorities of the 17th Assembly. Specific

activities in support of these priorities include: • ECE has initiated an ambitious system-wide

review of the education system. We have finalized a 10-year Education Renewal Framework, supported by a three-year action plan. The plan has been developed in collaboration with our education partners. It includes significant investments totaling $6.2 million over the three-year time frame. Many of the initiatives are one- or two-year pilot projects. This will provide us the opportunity to test our ideas and correct our course of action based on our experience throughout their implementation.

• This budget proposes an investment of $1.24

million to continue the activities listed in the Early Childhood Development Action Plan. As you know, the plan focuses on families and their children from birth to five years of age. Each of the 22 actions together will go a long way to ensure that every child, family and community, including those most at risk, have access to high quality, comprehensive, integrated early childhood development programs and services that are community driven, sustainable and culturally relevant.

• The revitalized Territorial Nominee Program has

demonstrated early success and is projected to exceed all expectations in 2015-2016. It will be a major contributor to supporting the growth strategy. The NWT Express Entry System will see employers linked with potential skilled immigrants, growing the population and improving our skilled NWT labour market.

• Our Skills for Success initiative promises to

ensure Northerners have the right type of skills for the jobs our economy will generate now and in the future. As we reach out beyond our borders to grow our population, it is just as important to ensure Northerners derive direct benefits from our economy by becoming active participants in our wage economy.

• an investment of $2.2 million dollars for the

implementation of ECE’s French Language Services Operating Plan, which will ensure that we meet our obligations as directed by the Supreme Court of Canada, and

• $6.7 million for Aboriginal language services to

promote and support the nine official Aboriginal languages of the NWT. This includes $3.5 million in funding to Aboriginal governments to help them implement their five-year Aboriginal language plans.

• Lastly, ECE proposes to do its part in support of

a key priority of this Assembly. We propose to decentralize an additional nine positions into regional centres. This brings our total to 16 positions being decentralized. By doing this, we will increase employment opportunities in the regions and bring services closer to the people we serve.

We could do a lot more with additional money but I believe that we are making best use of the already considerable investment in our education system, early childhood development programs, income security programs, post-secondary education, official languages and culture and heritage. That concludes my opening remarks. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. At this time I’d like to ask the

Minister if he’d like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Yes, I do, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Is committee agreed?

Thank you. I’ll ask Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.

Minister Lafferty, for the record, could you please introduce your witnesses.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. To my left I have Gabriela Eggenhoefer, deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment; to my immediate right is Olin Lovely, director of corporate services; and to my far right, associate deputy minister Dana Heide with Education, Culture and Employment. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. I will now turn to Members and ask if they have any general comments on the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to welcome the department here today. This is a very complex department and leaving it to the end of business plans usually is probably for a good reason. It allows committee to have a more thorough time with other departments to prepare for this very large department. In fact, it almost begs the question that with this department’s size and stature, it should almost be looked at as two departments in some respects, given the complexities that we have.

That being said, I appreciate the opportunity to talk with respect to some of the opening comments we heard from the Minister. I want to dive into a topic that didn’t get a lot of attention in the opening comments which I think is fundamentally a driving force for the department over the next little while.

First and foremost, I want to raise attention to a comment in the opening comments of the Minister when he said, “I also note that we have sheltered education authorities and the Aurora College from passive restraint.” As much as I appreciate that comment, I have to chuckle somewhat. Because although that might be true in one sense, we know that education authorities have not been immune to some of the clawbacks for some of the surpluses that they have achieved through good management skills in the last year to pay for things like junior kindergarten. When I do see comments like that, I take some of those comments with a grain of salt and I just wanted to put that on the record.

In as much as I appreciate the efforts – and again it’s true the department is not standing still, I will

give kudos to the department for that – what was basically silent in the opening comments and relatively silent in his budget per se is the issue of the Educational Renewal Initiative. ERI has been touted as literally the panacea of change. This is the guiding principle of what this department is going to be embarking on to put a lot of corrective actions in place for the next generation to come. I find it very concerning that, like I say, it was just mentioned extremely briefly in the opening comments. I just wanted to take a minute to air my concerns that I have as a Member. This is also echoed, and has been echoed by some of the Members of the committee, as well, as we embark on what I consider is year two on the ERI Action Plan.

While scouring through the myriad of information that we have at our disposal through Hansard, we know that ERI planned, over that three-year period, just over $6 million. So, in essence, we are in year two where we were led to believe it requires about $2 million for the implementation of this action plan. This is over and above the $150 million that is allocated annually to education authorities under the School Funding Framework. Although it is a smaller amount from an investment point of view, it is still significant. The reason why I want to draw the attention to it is I find there are a lot of complexities. This is a very complex matrix to understand. I would assume it’s even more of a complex matrix to deliver from the department’s perspective, and with over nine commitments and over 18 action areas, it’s clear that the department has its work cut out for it.

I’ll give the credit where credit is due. The plan itself is fairly impressive by design. It’s definitely a collaborative piece that’s taken a very coalescing and maturing approach and it has a lot of deliverables with some very, I would call it a very aggressive yearly target. So for those criteria I give the department kudos for bringing such a fairly complex target or innovation plan to the House. But I do have concerns, and concerns that are not oozing off of the opening comments and concerns that are not really oozing in the budget that we have before us.

Of course, first and foremost, I’ve got the concern about the resources and the constraint around the resources for this plan to actually come to fruition – as we heard, passive restraint from the Minister today. We’ve heard from the Minister of Finance that we’re dealing with a financial situation that’s very challenging. We’ve heard terms like we’re making best use of existing resources. All these broad swaths of comments really put credence to the comments, “how are we funding this monstrosity,” which really, as I said earlier, will become the guiding principles for our education system.

So with that, again, the Minister may want to comment to how is it that we’re finding the funds to do so. It sounds like we’re doing it internally. But given the magnitude and the importance of such an innovation, you would think that we would be putting significant dollars, significant investment dollars annually in the budget to address that in a way that I think the department has touted this as being literally the change that’s before us.

More importantly, the concern I have around ERI is how the department is deciding its priorities within it. As I said, nine commitments, 18 action areas. There are tons of project charters imbedded in there and it isn’t clear if the commitments within the ERI are actually placed in any type of sequential priority. It’s really hard for Members, and if it is hard for Members to understand, I can only imagine how difficult it is for the general public or even people within the education system to understand what the order of importance is to the department. What’s happening first, what’s happening second, or are they all happening at the same time? I think that’s an area to which a lot of us are struggling around.

Again, there’s no denying. I’ve spoken and many people have spoken around the complexities, around our Aboriginal language culture-based education, many layers of governance there that are competing, some redundancy built in there. We’re talking about inclusive schooling, the directives around that. Which ones get more priorities and, again, that clarity is a bit lacking and one in which I do challenge the department. If there’s one thing you can make better it’s to provide better communication on those priorities. What are we working on next? What’s the next big hurdle? There is the appearance that we’re kind of just all scattered doing all our different initiatives and yet somehow at the end we’re going to coalesce to a common point of fruition where we’re going to say, “We’re done now.” Many Members don’t see it. If we don’t see it as Members, I can’t see how the public can see it as being doable, as well, within the life of what we’re trying to achieve.

Again, when we talk about priorities, lots of discussion about the area of self-regulation, and I’ll be the first to say I appreciate the concept of self-regulation in terms of where it fits in terms of working on attaining graduation standards. But really, is this something, does it have higher importance over other things? As we talked about the other day, we’ve got various initiatives. There’s one big initiative I read there. It says, “new NWT high school system to complete various pathways and recognize school completion milestones.” These are the type of statements that I’m reading in the ERI. When I read that I go, what does that mean? If I can’t figure it out as an MLA, what does that mean? The general public isn’t going to figure it out either. So, very broad. Are these broad statements? I don’t want to use motherly because

it’s not. I’m sure there are guiding principles in mind, but they are very difficult.

Again, as indicated in the House the other day, I spoke to the phasing out of the Alberta Achievement Test, AATs, and looking at any type of continuity during this overlap as to when these new assessment instruments would be in place. My concern is baseline. The parents’ concerns are baseline; the kids’ concerns are baseline. We live in a world where we want to know how we fit in the world of competitiveness. So when we hear that AATs are being phased out, many of us are going, well, what are we going to use? Whatever we do use, are we masking potential issues that are still going to be lurking in the shadows of our education system as to whether we’re meeting basic standards at a national level? These questions are still not readily available for people, including MLAs.

Finally, the challenge, I know – and it would be a huge challenge to write a document of that magnitude – is how the readability of that document really is in its basic format. What I mean by that is there are so many synonyms imbedded within this ERI where it talks about commitments, initiatives, areas of action, draft plans, project charters. Again, so many moving parts, so many different synonyms that the plain language component sometimes is missed.

So, I did spend a lot of my time on the ERI component, which I think was definitely missing within the opening comments, but I’m sure I’ll have more as we get into detail. Those are my opening comments. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Any response, Mr. Lafferty?

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Obviously, when I talk about the passive restraint, we haven’t touched the school boards and also the Aurora College. More specifically to passive restraints, obviously it had an impact on our department, all the departments across the Northwest Territories. So I’ve been dealing with the school boards and the college on this particular subject, notifying them that we’re not going there at this time. I’ve respected that and I continue to work closely with the school boards at this level.

The whole ERI, Education Renewal and Innovation, obviously it’s a large initiative, it’s a huge undertaking and it will make drastic changes in the lives of our community members. It will be very beneficial. We’ve identified approximately $6.2 million of our initiatives. As the Member stated, it’s over and above the $150 million, yes it is, and we feel that it’s very important that we highlight some of the worthwhile initiatives within our department to continue implementing this very important piece of work that’s before us.

We’ve highlighted 2014-15, $2.4 million; 2015-16, $2 million; and 2016-17, $1.798 million. So that adds up to the three-year plan of $6.24 million. This is a priority for my department and also for this government, as well, and we’ve heard over and over from the Regular Members and even the forum, starting from Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative until today, that we need to improve our overall education system. That’s what we’re doing. We’re making changes to our Education Act; we’re making changes to our education programming across the Northwest Territories. We have not made any drastic changes over the last three decades within our education system, so this is very important piece of work.

We’re fully aware that Alberta is making some changes, as well, within their overall education system. So we’re closely monitoring their system as well.

Yes, we need to have clear communication dialogues when it comes to having some of the programs that have been identified that some of the community members may not be fully aware of, but we will be out there, we will be out to the communities, out to the regions talking about the whole Education Renewal and Innovation. We want that to be planted in everybody’s thinking. Even the kids need to be aware of what we’re planning and the changes. We’re also working with our partners across the Northwest Territories. The Literacy Council obviously plays a key role in developing an overall communication strategy, a plan to deliver plain speak language on the Education Renewal and Innovation. This is an area that we feel that we need to have plain speaking language on the Education Renewal and Innovation.

The AATs, obviously Alberta is going away with that. They’re doing another student assessment of their programming. Again, we are working very closely with them and how it’s going to look for the Northwest Territories. We are developing some areas of initiatives in that respect as well. As I stated before, the education system within Alberta is also changing, so both Alberta and the Northwest Territories are on the verge of overhauling our education system for the betterment of our jurisdiction.

Those are just, I believe, the key points that I wanted to address on the Member’s comments.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Any further general comments? Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of comments in no particular order. This is such a large department that it’s kind of hard to know where to start.

I appreciate Mr. Dolynny’s comments about ERI. It is a huge undertaking, and I appreciate the

Minister’s response as well. But it is a huge undertaking and I do have to say that I am still concerned that the department is trying to fund most of the changes that they’re making through the ERI Initiative. They’re trying to make those changes with money from within. If we are ever going to effect change and do it properly it needs to… In most cases when it’s a new initiative, it needs new money.

That leads me right into junior kindergarten, which was an initiative. It was funded basically from within, and I don’t think it was funded properly. It took money away from school authorities and put it into the Junior Kindergarten Program, and basically we’re robbing from Peter to pay Paul. I have to reiterate that I don’t think that a new initiative should be put into place by taking away from organizations which already have a good use for those funds.

I wanted to comment a bit on school attendance. The Minister made a statement the other day about school attendance and the importance of it. I agree wholeheartedly with the Minister. It’s absolutely important that we keep the kids in school. We’ve started on a, the royal we, the department has started on a campaign to try and increase attendance, and shortly after the Minister’s statement, Members received pamphlets and posters in our office. I looked at those today and I’m concerned about the money that we’re spending on these and whether or not it’s going to be for good value. I’m not at all convinced that posters and pamphlets are going to keep our kids in school. I think it needs a broader campaign. I believe at some point the Minister mentioned that there are many stakeholders requiring to be involved, and there absolutely does. We have to involve the parents in getting the kids to stay in school; we have to involve band councils and chiefs and local leaders in getting the kids to stay in school. I haven’t seen a plan from the department on how we’re going to do that, how we’re going to involve the people, more people than just the department in trying to increase our attendance. If we don’t have an all-encompassing campaign involving many people, it’s not going to succeed. I firmly believe that just having pamphlets and posters in the schools or in the community is not going to work.

The Alberta Achievement Tests have been mentioned. I will have a question when we get there. I’m a little confused about whether or not we are still using those tests. I thought we weren’t. I thought in this current school year that we had done away with AATs.

Inclusive schooling is an issue and particularly the funding or how the department funds inclusive schooling. The Minister has been talking about evaluating how we fund inclusive schooling for at least two years, probably more like three or four,

and we have yet to see any results of any evaluation. It has now been lumped into an evaluation of school funding in general, and that’s maybe okay, but it’s putting off again, for probably another year, any evaluation on how inclusive schooling is funded. This is long overdue. The School Funding Framework is overdue but the Inclusive Schooling Funding Framework is much more overdue, and I think we are not being fair to school authorities and children who need the biggest help, because I believe that they’re not being properly funded. Kids end up without assistance when they should have it. I’m disappointed that we are not going to see, I don’t think, any kind of a resolution to the inclusive schooling funding formula any time soon.

I’ve been talking a lot about income security in the last little while. The Minister knows that I have some problems with some of the ways that we interpret some of the policies and some of the regulations under income security. I don’t know if there is any intent on the part of the department to do an evaluation of income security. The last one was in 2007. I think it’s probably time that we did do another one, and it’s time that we compared ourselves to the rest of the country and find out whether or not we have policies which are either contradictory with other policies within government or policies which are punitive for our income support clients, because I think there certainly are some.

At committee in, well, I think it was when we reviewed business plans, committee talked a bit about Aurora College and the desire for Members to see the budget from Aurora College. I believe we were advised that we were going to see that budget and I don’t think we’ve seen it, so I will have a question when we get to that page.

I think the perspective of Members is that we give a huge amount of money to Aurora College and there ought to be some accountability from the college to the House, to the Members and to the committee that is responsible for education, which is the Committee on Social Programs. Yet, the Minister seems to say that any accountability should go through the Minister. I would disagree with him on that. I think that the college needs to be more open, certainly with Members, or the Minister needs to be more open with college information to Members, because we really have no opportunity right now. We don’t even get the budget, and we have no opportunity to have any kind of evaluation or consideration of how the college is spending their money.

I think that’s about it. I’m a little bit disjointed but I would like to just say that I’ll have questions when we get to each individual page, so I don’t need a response from the Minister unless he feels that he absolutely has to do that.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Member is not requesting a response from the Minister at this time. If there is anything he has a desire to respond to in this, maybe he could add it after the next Member who is going to provide general comments. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had some opening comments, I guess, some of the things that have been coming up over the last year. Obviously, education is of great importance to most of us here. One of the biggest budgets here, obviously.

Some of my colleagues talked about, obviously, the pressure that junior kindergarten placed on our educators, our DEAs, the South Slave Divisional Education Board. I guess we were just concerned about how that rolled out, and obviously, we’re looking forward to reviewing and seeing how that will work out in the future. I think, from Hay River’s perspective, we had a lot of early childhood development programs in place, so there is a lot of pressure if junior kindergarten was a mandatory issue or had to be rolled out that it would affect a lot of those organizations, so we were highly concerned in that area. We’re looking forward to seeing how we can work with the department on some sort of Junior Kindergarten Program in some of the places that want it, but I think it has to be wanted and it can’t be a cookie cutter approach of this is the way we’re going to roll it out. I think regions and communities have to make a decision on how they want to affect this implementation of junior kindergarten. I’m looking forward to some of that discussion in the future.

The education renewal, obviously, I guess it’s hard for a lot of people to wrap their head around how we’re going to renovate the whole building and still be able to live here and live in the facility. I don’t know how we re-form education and still have education operational. Making some changes will put a lot of pressure on the cost. I’m not sure where and how we’re going to roll this all out. I’m not clear on the complete plan of how that’s going to happen. So, I mean, we’re hearing concerns about that and obviously we have our DEA and our council that are just a little bit leery of how that’s going to roll out. Because of the pressures that they have financially, they’re constantly looking at where the dollars are coming from. You know, debating whether they bus or not bus. Just to be able to find some dollars to keep programming going and, you know, keeping the kids educated.

Some other concerns there, obviously. You know, I think as a resource centre we see a lot of pressure, a lot more kids, you know, and obviously the social passing puts pressures in the classrooms. Because of the funding issues there aren’t as many assistants that we can put there. So there’s a lot of angst when we go to our meetings with our DEAs

and councils to talk about stuff, because it seems like we’re asking more of them without any dollars attached to it. They’re obviously finding a lot of pressure, and I keep saying pressure because I walk into the building and you can just feel that there’s angst there. They’re concerned about how it’s going to roll out. The pressures that they currently have, how can they do more? You know, it’s very difficult for us to sit here and support the way some of the things roll out from the department when the DEAs don’t get a lot of consultation. They might get a quick visit, but, I mean, the whole process is they want to be able to implement it the way they want.

One of the things recently in talking in our constituency meeting, in talking to one of the people, was even the sponsored iPads that we’ve talked about, thinking that putting iPads into schools or putting them into early childhood development would be a great idea. But, I mean, the problem is that with that technology comes more need for support, more technical support, and we don’t really have that many people in the schools that have the IT support. So, I mean, we have keen teachers that will take an interest in it and they seem to be the go-to for that technical support but, you know, to get additional iPads, it sounds like a great idea for the youth, but when it puts more pressure on the teachers and somebody to deal with how that iPad broke down today or it’s not working the way it’s supposed to is a concern. I mean, that’s one concern we just heard recently.

You know, in this department, obviously I’ve talked a fair bit about linking our post-secondary students to the jobs that we offer, the vacancies that we have. I think we need to work harder and I think we’ve made some strides, some steps, to make sure we have a link, a contact with those post-secondary students. I think that’s one key to get more people from the Northwest Territories to come back and work in the Northwest Territories. Once they get back here, they start living here, they get jobs, they buy a house, you know, they’re entrenched in the community. So I think we need to work really closely with HR to get that. I don’t think we have that many students and maybe the Minister can give some information on the actual amount we’re dealing with, but it seems to me it could be manageable to be able to contact those people, especially with today’s technology, e-mails and stuff like that, social media, to get out the information of, you know, we want you to come back, and linking, you know, like I was asking this week with the Minister of HR, linking those jobs so that we have the ability to offer them a job before they get their last year done in their degree or their technical institution. You know, we have these skilled labourers that want to come back to the Northwest Territories, not even looking south because I already got a job, you know, in one of the

communities or in Yellowknife or wherever I’m from. I’ve been able to land a job, so why would I even worry about looking anywhere else? That’s most of my comments, Madam Chair. If the Minister could give me a quick response, that would be great. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. We talk about the overall ERI. It’s a huge undertaking. We’re hearing from Regular Members that this is a big initiative, and we also hear about the JK, obviously the decision from October 30, 2014, to put a stop to the second and third phase and to continue with rolling out to the small communities for last year and also next year. So, we continue to work with the school boards on that. We have 19 communities going forward and 18 the following year.

Keeping the kids in school, obviously it’s a priority. We’ve given out posters and pamphlets. Obviously, this is for outside schools where kids usually hang out when they’re skipping class. It’s a message from their peers. It’s a message from the youth that they associate with. It’s not our message as a department, but it’s their messaging. So, I think we want to make that clear; it’s coming from the youth, all these messages. We’re hoping that this will get some attention from those individuals who are just wandering around in the community.

Inclusive schooling, obviously the evaluation status, Member Bisaro talked about that, when the report is coming out. Part of the report obviously will be concluded and ready for March 31, 2015. That is our target date, because this is another huge undertaking that we’re very serious about, how we currently fund the school boards.

Another one is Income Support, the policy. Obviously, the policy had a dramatic change in 2007 and we are going through another change in 2015, this year. So, with any policy we do make changes that reflect the needs of our clientele, the northern residents.

The college budget obviously will be before you, through my department. We provide funding on an annual basis and they decide operations and maintenance of the college. They have their own expenditure and they account to us, as well, as a department. So, we will be delivering that through this venue.

JK, again, a lot of pressure, as Member Bouchard has indicated. We are currently, again, continuing to work with the school boards on this particular area.

ERI, again, we are working with the Literacy Council to have plain language on what would be the funding, what kind of programs would be available and what changes are coming. We will be

getting into detail, Madam Chair, as we get into our mains.

The iPad system that the Member has referred to, obviously that’s an area that we will be doing a pilot project beginning this month, in March. We’re dishing out at least a hundred iPads on a trial basis to the parents, and we’re going to find out where the kinks are and what needs to be fixed and so forth. Then, in the fall of this year, the remaining iPads will be distributed to the new parents. So we’re fully aware of the system support. The mechanism should be place, I fully agree with the Member. This is an area where we are working with the system within the Education department and also DECs and DEAs. They have their own resources that we need to work with on the IT.

Post-secondary students linked to job opportunities, this is exactly what we’re doing. It is part of the growth strategy. We have made some changes in our policy about how we can have easier access to post-secondary students. From here on, we are going to have access to those students, take them out for supper and hear their perspective and what their interests are. We have approximately 1,450 students who are accessing student financial assistance. Obviously, we want to see that number increase as well. We have made some changes so we can have access to those individual students so we know where they have job opportunities. Those are some remarks that were addressed to my attention. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Next I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate this opportunity to comment on the department’s budget. I welcome the Minister and his staff. I think in the Minister’s opening comments it had a lot of keywords that the Members are very interested in: early childhood development, education renewal, cost of living, supports to those most vulnerable and so on. I was happy to see the capacity to both re-profile and achieve new funding for key initiatives in this department.

On the income assistance side there are a number of expenditures planned to improve that situation. I think it is $6.6 million over the next four years starting with our first fiscal year coming up. This, based on my written questions earlier in the term, would bring income assistance up to about $26 million. So we are steadily increasing the amount of subsidy we are putting forward for supporting our residents, but I would ask the question: how many people is this getting out of poverty as opposed to supporting them in poverty? How many people is this getting a job as opposed to supporting them in their unemployment? How many people is this reducing health care requirements for as opposed to keeping them in unhealthy situations and housing and so on?

We saw that a guaranteed annual income was a completely different model in the one comprehensive test done in Canada where it was done in a five-year run with an additional eight years of comprehensive monitoring was proven to test those sorts of things. Where is the innovative thinking? Is there an openness to consider doing this in one region? I would even support this for the Minister’s region or the Sahtu or wherever. Rather than just do the same thing harder and bumping up our subsidies every year without addressing these common issues, there is an opportunity to seek a more effective way in dealing with them in a more effective way that removes the issues.

Education renewal is something the Minister is getting a lot of feedback on and I would like to add my voice in support of this. I appreciate, in particular, the bit of focus and the concept of self-regulation, something that teachers are familiar with these days and I have learned a little bit about, and I also think we need the social and emotional learning approach. Perhaps that’s already considered in the Education Renewal Initiative.

Ultimately, I prefer to see the Education Renewal Initiative adopt the Finnish education model, as I’ve spoken about before. Yet, I see the direction we are taking with education renewal is at least a step in that direction and I’m happy to see that.

I’m not sure how this exactly fits in with the system-wide review. I would be interested in hearing more about that, and maybe that’s an ECE as opposed to a system-wide review. I’m not sure I have that right. I know the Minister did make a comment, a system-wide review of the education system. Where does education renewal fit in that? Again, I see a real opportunity in that case to explore how we can adopt and adapt the Finnish education system which has proven highly successful to our northern jurisdiction.

The expansion of early childhood development, I know the Minister knows it does my heart good to see investments in this area. Depending how those dollars are spent, are we going to have another iPad fiasco? Is this Chevron dollars or another fossil fuel agency that’s getting free advertising, government-sponsored advertising? I hope not. I hope that these are real on-the-ground programs, community-based programs that will work with families, parents-to-be and young families, as the Minister says, zero to five. We need to provide the students with fertile minds when they enter into the education system. They are quite different approaches there.

The Skills for Success Initiative I think is quite good in theory, but I would be concerned, as many others have who speak to me, over the trend to believe that we know through the influence of industry on us exactly what sort of skills are needed out there. To me and others, we are supporting the production

of automatons, the big wheels of some rig, away from home and family with this sort of thinking. So I throw out a caution there. I think education should be focused on allowing students to develop their full potential. That’s been demonstrated to be the best for the economy, for the well-being of families and so on. That’s treading a line there, so I would urge the Minister to be cautious in that regard.

Decentralization, if there is any department that should already be decentralized, I expect it would be ECE. If or when this happens, I hope the department will look at a region with a very low ratio of government jobs per capita such as the Tlicho and Sahtu regions, for example. South Slave, of course, has a higher ratio even than the North Slave and I don’t see that kind of accommodation in the decentralization policy.

This is my last item. There is still a serious deed to provide Aurora College with the academic freedom that every other such institution in Canada enjoys and this one does not. I think that’s limiting them. There are some inefficiencies there, still misreporting and whatnot. I see we approved them for budgets in the mains. Their year-end report shows that they way overspend and somehow get the money from the department and not infrequently end up with a surplus, quite different numbers than what we approve. So there is a considerable amount of murkiness still with the whole Aurora College situation. I know we have tried to work on this, but we haven’t been successful. I think it’s a fertile area to keep examining and tuning up. The fundamental thing provides the academic freedom such an institution should have.

I will leave it at that, Mr. Chair. I look forward to the detail, but I would appreciate any remarks the Minister might have. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. First and foremost, obviously, the income security, improved programs. The Member asked if there have been any improvements, whether it be getting people off income security. We’ve had some changes with income security. Since 2009 we had approximately 3,400 cases and in 2013 it went down to 3,100 cases. There has been a drop of 8 percent over the last five years, approximately. That is a substantial change in our view. Obviously, we want to have a higher margin as well. That’s our target that we’re going to push forward with.

We are creating five employment service officers into the communities that will tackle those areas, as well, and having people ready for career choices. Those individuals will be working very closely with the community organizations. The 3,400, now it’s down to 3,100. Obviously, we want to decrease that

number as well. We will be reporting back to standing committee on the progress at that level.

ERI, the self-regulations. There has been a lot of discussion in that area where we brought in experts, very professional in that field and provided workshops, provided training to our school system. Even the Regular Members attended as well. This has been very successful today even though it’s very preliminary. But we will continue to provide those types of services. Through that area, ERI obviously is also working in line with the Early Childhood Development Framework and there’s also the Skills for Success Initiative as well. There are three big ticket items within my department that go hand in hand from early childhood, zero to five, K to 12, post-secondary and even beyond to workforce development, having our people with the required tools. This is a prime focus of my department.

Education, allowing students to reach their fullest potential. Obviously, that is what we’re focusing on. From what we’ve heard from the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, they want us to focus on early childhood, and that’s what we’re doing as part of one of our initiatives. Also, there has been talk about our secondary students are not ready for post-secondary, so ERI will be addressing that, as well, the discussion from the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. Through that venue it gave us a lot of feedback, and based on that, we have ERD, ERI and Skills for Success before us today.

Decentralization, how can we focus on those low-ratio, small communities. That’s our prime target. We are currently addressing that within our department, 15 positions through various communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Obviously, I’d like to see that number increase over time, and that is the target that we’re going to push forward within my department.

Obviously, Aurora College has been brought up on numerous occasions and how the reporting mechanism should be improved. This is an area that my department has been working very closely with the college board and also the senior staff on how we can improve in those areas. I take the Member’s words into serious consideration. Accountability plays a key role. That has been relayed to the college board already.