Thank you, Madam Chair. The "Develop new mentorship programs to support emerging entrepreneurs" -- sorry, are we talking about the mentorship program or the apprentice? Oh, sorry, that's my mistake. The mentorship program is with ITI. You were right all along, Premier.

Mr. Bonnetrouge, could you please repeat your question?

We're all hard of hearing.

---Laughter

I was asking about the mentorship program, and I'm kind of wondering what that entails. What are they talking about when they're saying "mentorship program"? What will it look like, and what positions? Mahsi.

Minister for ITI.

As you can see in the mandate, this program will be developed going forward. I believe the idea is that we look at, say, small businesses or certain types of industry where there are people accessing our ITI programs in order to provide funding to get their business going, or to learn some certain aspects of the business. We would be looking to create a program where we could partner up successful businesspeople or successful tradespeople, or whatever program it might be under, that we then can partner them to these entrepreneurs or these new emerging businesses, so that they can learn from each other; or mostly learn from the mentor. It is under development, and we would be open to feedback on what that looks like.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Deh Cho.

What you're stating there is to work with qualified tradespeople, but at the same time, too, you have to remember that, in our small communities, we don't have qualified tradespeople in the communities. I'm really wondering how that's going to work, or if it's even going to do any good for the small communities, unless you bring in a tradesperson from outside into that program.

I'm also looking at, you know, it's kind of ambitious and I'm really looking forward to this, the working group that is going to develop employment opportunities. Like, we're looking at fall of 2020, 30 new jobs. Is that 30 new jobs in each community? Mahsi.

Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's 30 jobs that will be new; it's not 30 in every community. Some communities, like Colville Lake, I mean, having 30 new jobs there might be really difficult to achieve. There are jobs, though, that can be brought into it. I know that using, for example, the Housing Corporation, housing maintainers are jobs that should be, in my opinion, in every single community. Where we have an LHO, there definitely should be housing maintainers there, oil burner mechanics, electricians, et cetera. We might need to bring in some journeypeople, but I think that's our obligation, to be able to provide people with the skills that they need to succeed. I don't think I would be adverse to bringing in people who are needed.

In small communities, small businesses are a viable option. For example, one of our options is opening up the housing units, housing homes, so that they can do small businesses, and people who do, for example, traditional artwork and things, they might be great at doing the artwork, but are they good at doing business? In my opinion, a lot of them are underselling. Where do I sell those to? Do I sell them to the person who is coming off the plane, or do I get them into a major centre and actually put them on a store shelf? Those are things that the mentorship program can assist with. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Member for Deh Cho.

Thank you. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree that there are lots of opportunities. When I was the housing Minister a couple of years ago, I believe we only had 15 apprentices. That is not okay. If we have 33 communities, we can do better than 15 apprentices within housing. I did hear the Member say that there were no qualified journeymen, but I also heard the Member say that he has a housing maintainer, so we do have one person who is actually certified. We just need to convince that one person to take on apprentices. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Any further questions, Member for Deh Cho? Okay. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My concern with this one is that it's being led by ECE, ITI, Housing Corporation, and ENR, four departments, and we all know the problem with silos. Will the Premier, commit to a report being filed each fall deadline here of what those 30 jobs and in which communities?

Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, as part of the mandate commitment, we will be doing an annual review, and so we will put those statistics in there. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Are there any further questions to "Increase employment to small communities"? All right. Seeing none, committee, we will move to pages 16 and 17: "Make strategic infrastructure investments that connect communities, expand the economy or reduce the cost of living." Questions? Member for Kam Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I am wondering if the Premier can speak to the cost of doing the items found under "Advance the development of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the Slave Geological Province Corridor, and the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project." Thank you.

Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that we are in the assessment, the research portion of that. I will transfer it over to the Minister of Infrastructure to see if she has any more information other than what we have at the moment. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister of Infrastructure.

Thank you. Yes, so we are currently in the background sort of data collection, study, where we are hoping to, at the end of that, be able to produce the business cases, which would then include all of the costing, et cetera, for those projects. I do not have that information on hand at the moment.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.