Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the Finance Minister's address, he committed to restoring funding to Aurora College to deliver the social work and teacher education programs but made note that there will be no additional intake for these two programs, so I would like to ask the Minister of Education if he can explain how this process is going to work and what the students who were previously impacted by this change can expect now that this financial commitment has come forward from this government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As previously noted throughout the course of the dialogue in session, we are going to continue to support the students who are currently in the program, support them through to completion for the years moving ahead. As I mentioned, as the Member mentioned and the Finance Minister, there will be no intakes for the upcoming year until these programs are reviewed and the college is reviewed, as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What of the access program students who were planning on taking this program? Will they still be able to fulfill those goals? We will start with that.

We have two students in the access program for TEP and five who were going into the social work program. The staff at Aurora College has been working with these students to help them look for programs in other institutions, so they have all had a plan in place for their career goals as well as their academic path moving forward.

I spoke to some of these students, potentially before that happened, and they were quite upset about not being able to do this education here in the North, or at least start this education here in the North. Is there any possibility that exceptions can be made for these students to continue on the educational path that they had originally planned to do before this announcement was made?

As we have had this dialogue, Members said that nothing should be done until the strategic view has been in place as well as looking at a foundational review, so we have put everything on hold. We are not going to continue with the intakes. With the decisions that were made, we believe that it was appropriate, working with Aurora College with the reductions in the TEP program and social work program, so we are going to wait until the review is complete before we continue to make any further decisions.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister thought that this was a good idea, but, clearly, there has been a reversal decision there, which I appreciate. Perhaps the Minister can just remind this House and the public: when will the strategic plan be available for review, and can we get a concrete timeline, please, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Moving forward with Aurora College, we did send a letter off to standing committee, and we will be giving standing committee more of an update early next week.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up with my other colleagues here on Housing, my question to the Minister of Housing is on programs or additional programs. Cataloguing the survey is under way, and I suspect it will be followed by a review. On the idea of preservation of capital, is the Minister's office willing to entertain or have a loan guarantee program to high-credit applicants so that they can be eligible to own their own home, considering the life of the CMHC program is one-mortgage term? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a bit early to define what exactly the program renewal will look like, because the survey just closed over a week ago. I do know, however, that we have done mortgage programs in the past and there were some issues with them, so I would have to review what the problems were with the mortgage programs that we provided, to do an analysis. I know that we also will be working towards more of a lease-to-own kind of a model, as well. So, in regard to whether we start to do a guaranteed loan, that would be something I would have to explore to find out why it didn't work in the past. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am glad to hear that the Minister is open to suggestions on how to better package and tailor programs offered to the communities. In this case, on the issue of capital preservation, I think it will be an entertaining suggestion to look at loan guarantees to be ironed out in the new strategy.

That was more of a comment, but I will allow the Minister, if she wishes, to respond.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is looking forward to all of the ideas. We will be reviewing all suggestions that are provided with the survey, in the House, and any other way that we have gotten input, so everything will be reviewed.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today the Finance Minister provided some information to the public and to us in the House about increases to the budget. In one of the lines, it says that we will increase the budget for homecare for $2.5 million. Through the whole process, we started at $1.5 million, so can the Minister of Health and Social Services please advise this House what this extra $1 million amount is going to be allocated for in homecare? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the budget stands today, there is $7.954 million in the budget for homecare as part of our core services. This $2.5 million is going to increase that $7.954 million to $10.454 million. Mr. Speaker, there is also $5.358 million that comes from the federal government to provide home and community supports to Indigenous people throughout the Northwest Territories. It's our understanding that the federal government is considering modifying their formula on how those dollars are distributed throughout the Northwest Territories, not decreasing the amount but modifying their formula, which could result in some of our regions receiving less money for homecare than they currently do as the federal money changes.

We want to make sure that we are working with our communities so that we do not go backwards in services, so some of those dollars are intended to help us make sure that some of our regions do not have reduced homecare services as a result of the potential change in the federal formula. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister for his answer. That was good to hear. With this new money, will this money be put out April 1st, and are we ready to go?

During our decisions with Committee of the Whole, I was very clear that we have a significant amount of work to still do. In fact, we talked about the continuing care plan, which is basically going to include our homecare services. I committed to moving that work along as quickly as I could, and, should we reach a point where we are actually ahead of schedule, I indicated that I would be happy to move forward for a supplementary to start rolling out some of these changes. This addition means, basically, I wouldn't have to come forward for a supplementary.

I do believe there are things we can do right away. One of the things we are doing right away is looking at what baseline home support services are needed by every community in the Northwest Territories. Once that work is done, we can start moving forward. So, there is still some planning to do, but I am confident we will be able to use this money to benefit residents of the Northwest Territories.

I appreciate the Minister's answer and look forward to hopefully implementing this. However, as we are talking about the plans, it can be a long process. What will happen if this government does not utilize all of this money? Where does this money go?