Minister Carolyn Bennett, the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, did come to the Northwest Territories in January. I forget the exact date, but she did travel to Norman Wells to talk specifically about Nutrition North, since Norman Wells is one of the communities that is covered under Indigenous North, and she did consult with the affected people. There is no indication of when this will come into effect, but she has certainly indicated the government is prepared to move on it fairly quickly, and again, the way governments work, I don't expect there will be any indication one way or the other until the first budget of the Government of Canada is delivered towards the ends of March.

The Prime Minister wrote about doubling infrastructure investment in the country from $65 billion to $125 billion. That’s over ten years. Do we have any indication at all about how the money is going to be divided, or if we know what our share of the $125 billion infrastructure spending would be?

In his letter, he indicated for the first two years, they would double the infrastructure funding budget that was billed in Canada. That is a question of interest to all the provinces and territories. We have met with Minister Morneau, the federal Finance Minister, where we raised and discussed infrastructure funding. I did talk to the Prime Minister about social infrastructure, green infrastructure, and also the Building Canada Fund. He has indicated that he recognizes the importance of those infrastructure funds. I indicated to him that as a small territory, obviously, our preference is base plus funding as opposed to per capita funding as has been reported in some of the media reports. He indicated that he understood the situation. The Minister of Finance, when pressed, indicated that they wouldn't be finalizing or rolling out their infrastructure program until June or July. Certainly, as a government, we are working very hard to reconfirm our Building Canada projects that we submitted before the election.

Mahsi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister indicated that they would be moving to a faster approval process for Building Canada Fund, as the Premier just mentioned. When will this faster process occur? Because what I am seeing is even from what has been approved by the last government, the bundles that I questioned the transportation minister on before, seems to be slowed down from what the original intent of those bundles were. Does the Premier have any indication of when the faster approval process will occur? Thank you.

We have reached out to the federal government, both through our Minister with lead responsibility for Infrastructure and also Minister of Transportation. We have had some mixed signals, but we are taking steps to reconfirm our bundles. Bundle number two, as the Member knows, was submitted before the federal election. We are reconfirming very soon bundle number two, which is in the neighbourhood of $100 million, but the Prime Minister himself has indicated that there is still $185 million allocated for the Northwest Territories that he has said would be going out. We have had the Member of Parliament for the Northwest Territories also following up on infrastructure to clear up some of these mixed messages. We have been talking to the federal Minister responsible for infrastructure, so we are taking steps to make sure the money starts flowing as soon as possible, and also to reconfirm what our assets are.

Mahsi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.

Quyanini, Mr. Speaker. Earlier, I spoke about residential schools and reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. My question is: Have you implemented mandatory training for teachers and Education, Culture, and Employment staff on residential schools?

Mahsi. Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member's statement that the Member brought forward on residential school training. As residential schools have impacted people in every community in the Northwest Territories, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission brought these issues forward to all Canadians, as well as to people of the Northwest Territories. Mandatory training has been brought forward in a variety of ways. We have developed, in partnership with Nunavut, a residential school curriculum through our Northern Studies program. We have also introduced mandatory training to all teachers in the Northwest Territories, kindergarten to grade 12, and our goal is to have every teacher who teaches in the Northwest Territories take that awareness training. We have made this residential school training available to all Education, Culture and Employment, and we have made it mandatory for all Education, Culture and Employment employees to take it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My question is: Is there a plan to expand the training to other interested groups?

As I mentioned, with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission bringing forth the recommendations, when we looked at them, we found out we were already doing a lot of this work throughout the Northwest Territories. With that said, we are offering some of this training to other jurisdictions throughout the North and throughout Canada. I myself participated in the training. We had participants from Nunavut, Yukon, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and we are also looking at getting federal ministers who are also interested in taking some of this residential school training. Our goal is to ensure that anybody that does work here in the North is aware of the impact that residential schools had on our people, our families, and our communities.

As leaders for the Northwest Territories, leaders in our communities, and Members who make decisions for people throughout the Northwest Territories, you heard earlier of some of the social implications that we see in our small communities. I would be more than happy to work with Members to have all Members participate in this residential school training.

Mahsi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be for the Minister of Finance. My first question is: Can the Minister provide a brief update on the status of the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my understanding is work is progressing along very well and my understanding is that it’s supposed to be lights-on during 2016. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Can the Minister identify the jobs that may be available at the Inuvik Satellite Station Facility and the Western Arctic Geomatics Centre as a result of the completion of the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link?

Mr. Speaker, because of Inuvik's geographically-gifted location there's a great deal of interest in satellite stations in Inuvik. I had the opportunity to speak to a number of those folks that want to put satellite receiving stations there. It's obviously very high-tech field. I have spoken to the gentleman that was doing the consulting for the GNWT and I had asked him to give us some of the skill sets that may be required for working on the facilities once they're completed, and he was going to get that information back to me, but I see a great opportunity to work with Aurora College to possibly have some of the training available for some of the higher-tech positions. Once I get that list and some of the skill sets that might be needed, I will share it with the Member and with committee.

That answered a part of my next question, but I'll ask this anyway. Has the Minister worked with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to identify training opportunities in connection with the new Geomatics Centre and the Inuvik Satellite Station Facility?

No, I haven't had a conversation with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment yet. But, as I said before, once I get a better understanding of some of the skill sets that might be needed and some of the training courses that we may be able to offer, I will have a conversation with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to see if there's an opportunity for us to consider running some courses that might be beneficial to a number of our students. In my conversations with the folks from DLR in Germany, I had talked to them about the fact that if they can send folks over to Inuvik and train some of our people there, I said, or we can send some of our young people over to Germany to get the proper training there. His comment was, well, if we send people to Inuvik they may not want to come back, and I said, that's precisely the point. ---Laughter

Mahsi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister commit to discussing training opportunities with for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and other relevant departments, to increase the number of Northerners involved in the research and development that is taking place in our back yard? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.