Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. One of the things that I hear about from people in my riding is that they want to be able to support apprentices, they want to be involved in the success of apprentices. However, if they take on somebody who is not an apprentice to work around the office, they get wage subsidy up to minimum wage. If they take on an apprentice, the wage subsidies are at $8 an hour. My question is: to further support employer participation in trades development, is ECE willing to -- and maybe this is not the place for this question, and I am sure the Minister will tell me. Is there room within that budget to increase the apprenticeship wage subsidy? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. There is no room in the budget to increase it. The larger wage subsidy is funded through federal government programs, and they have a lot more money. The other wage subsidies, the $8 wage subsidies, are funded by the GNWT. We have to do our best to stretch our dollars as far as we can, and we don't have enough to fund all of the apprentices in the territory with that budget. Even as is, we fall quite short of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. How many apprentices does this fund every year? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. I'll ask Mr. Saturnino for that.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Saturnino.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

The budget is built to fund 80 to 100; however, right now, it's funding 317 apprentices. Is that correct?

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Can you clarify that for us, Minister?

Thank you. There are 300-and-some apprentices. The budget can't fund them all, and it's not funding them all. It is funding I think it's about 28 percent of the apprentices, is what we have the budget to fund. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The other 220 people who are apprentices, if their employers come to access this fund, it is fully subscribed, and they are unable to get wage subsidies for their apprentices. Is that correct? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. I'd ask Mr. Saturnino to expand on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Saturnino.

Thank you, Mr. Saturnino. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'd like to move on to the labour market programs. One of the programs that's in the labour market programs is the nominee program. One of the things that I hear about most often in the constituency that I serve is people concerned, especially right now with COVID, that we're going to lose a lot of people from the Northwest Territories over the course of the next one to two years. What this program, the nominee program, supports is people who are moving from out-of-country to Canada, and so that's an investment that the GNWT has decided to make. However, what I hear is that it's a lot easier to work through immigration programs in places like Manitoba and Newfoundland, and so we might actually stand not only to lose Canadians who have decided to move up to the Northwest Territories, but also people from other parts of the world who have moved up to the Northwest Territories. That stands to kind of create a perfect storm when it comes to our federal transfer dollars, so I am wondering: is this enough to support our investment of bringing people to the territory? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. I could say that. You could say that. We've had our best year in terms of the number of nominees who have come to the territory in 2020, and that goes back at least about 11 years. We are improving. We've just had our best year ever, so we're doing something right. Thank you.