Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Deputy Minister Aumond. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just wondering if we’re able to get that information or is it available on a public website where we can get the new northern allowance adjustments or the new allowances and which communities went up and which communities went down.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can provide that information to committee. Thank you.

I’ve just got a question about the ones that are going down. Is that based on the fact that the cost of living is going down in some communities? I would assume most of them or all of them would have gone up. So what would the differences be and why would there be a negative?

The one thing that comes to mind, and I’ll ask the deputy to speak further to this, is things like if you put in a bridge across a river, possibly, I’m not sure of the methodologies there tied to cost of living, inflation and location and those types of things. But I’ll ask the deputy, Mr. Aumond, to speak further. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bouchard.

So if we’re using Yellowknife as the base and also using the calculations of the community, it could be the price in Yellowknife went down or the price of the community went up or vice versa I guess. Is that the factor or, I guess, how do we keep that stable in the fact that the greater the northern living allowance adjustment to a community, the cost to the community may have gone up, but if Yellowknife was affected then everybody gets affected?

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Committee, we’re on page 5, Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $84,000; income security, not previously authorized, $1.332 million; labour development and standards, not previously authorized, $226,000. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am in the right section. I wanted to ask a bit about the $215,000 here to provide funding for increasing immigration to the Northwest Territories in support of the NWT Growth Strategy. I’d like to ask the Minister where this strategy is. I don’t believe that Members on this side of the House have seen that strategy. I would like to know what it is that ECE is doing that will contribute to this Growth Strategy to increase immigration. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The update on the NWT Growth Strategy is on its way to committee. I just signed the letter at the break and we will be tabling it before the end of session by Thursday.

What is contemplated here is to deal with the increased number of seats that we have, spots that we have with the Immigration Program and to be able to ramp up the recruiting and the advertising and getting the required immigrant staff or folks who are interested in coming or immigrating to the Northwest Territories to get them into the system, through the system under the new Express Program that has been set up and to make sure that we have every position that we have available for our nominees filled. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. It’s difficult for me to feel comfortable in approving a fund, sorry, and to approve this funding in the absence of knowing exactly how it’s going to contribute to a plan that I haven’t seen yet. So, I appreciate that the Minister says that it’s coming, but it certainly would have been helpful if we had had that strategy before we had to approve these expenses.

I just want to say, in my limited experience with trying to get somebody through this Nominee Program, it’s not an easy process. It seems to be fraught with bureaucratic red tape and much of it, part of it is imposed by the feds, some of it is our own red tape, but the Minister mentions the express, I forget the title, but an express route, I guess, through the Nominee Program. Does that mean that some of these roadblocks through red tape and through requiring this document and that document and this evaluation and that evaluation, are some of those going to be waived so that we will be able to get people here quicker or better? Thank you.

Yes, the intent is to look at a six-month timeline. It’s geared to economic immigration where you can go in and reach into the lists that identify people who have the skills, if you need to bring in, to offer employment to. We had a base of 150 spots and we’ve received an additional 100, so we are very keen to get those all filled and operational as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. That’s all well and good. It sounds good, but what is the department going to be doing to fill these 250 spots? There’s money here and there’s also money in ITI, so it ends up to be about $314,000. What are we using that $300,000 for? Thank you.

We’ve got $100,000 identified for a communication campaign. There’s $30,000 identified for communication materials for the campaign strategy; $15,000 for website change, revisions and ongoing maintenance; French translation, website and all

other materials is $20,000; immigration, legislation and regulatory training is $10,000; travel and transport, NWT and national, is $20,000; and international travel and transportation is $20,000. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for the detail. I accept it at face value, but I just have to reiterate that it’s hard to know exactly how this is going to fit in with a strategy we haven’t seen yet. Thanks. That’s all I have, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. More of a comment, but I will allow the Minister an opportunity to reply. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We note the Member’s concern and hopefully the proof will be in the pudding here in the not-too-distant future. If we can fill those hundred spots and each spot that is filled is calculated to bring in somewhere in the neighbourhood of potentially three people or a shade more, depending if they’re married and how many children they have, it’s an investment that I think we need to make. Thank you.