Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Further to that answer, I still feel that, you know, we pay a lot of money to locums that are not -- they're not guaranteed residents of the Northwest Territories. Every community does. And when we have someone who is of Indigenous descent and who is a Metis person and going in to be a -- I don't know if she -- she is going to graduate, with honors from the University of Saskatchewan, and is going to be a surgeon, and who's willing to come here, you're telling me that she has to go get lines of credits that are payable back and yet we're putting all these other students through school and you're not getting the surgeon or a doctor. And that kind of is -- we have to start thinking out of the box and look after the people, because we have such a shortage of doctors and nurses and anybody in the medical field. So I just want to see the Minister's opinion if he would consider it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. So the SFA program is -- you know, it provides basic funding for university students. You know, there could be instances where departments want to provide scholarships or bursaries to students, and that's done for different things. I know ECE provides additional bursaries for people going into certain -- or, you know, taking -- studying certain fields. But that's not something that SFA is doing at this point.

I mean, we could look into it but as the Member said, we need lots of doctors; we need nurses; we need trades people; we need teachers; we need virtually every profession here in the territory. So that's why we have such a large population of people who move up from the south and work for a few years and then head back down, and then someone else cycles up, because we really are lacking a lot of qualifications in the territory. So it's hard to say yes for this and perhaps no for other things, and I don't think that ECE is the department that should be doing that. It should be, you know -- if another department feels as though they need to boost a certain, you know, level of professions in the territory, then perhaps they can have some targeted measures to do that. But our program is more general in nature. I'm very sympathetic to what the Member's saying, we do need more doctors, but the program at this point is a general studies program. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just going to switch around now to the commitment of Indigenous languages, and I want to ask the Minister if there is going to be an interpreter language translator course in a two-year diploma or a four-year program with a degree in the future? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. Yes, there is work, and this is under the budget of a previous section, but there is work towards developing a languages program, a two-year diploma which could then lead into something like an interpreter-translator program or perhaps a bachelor of education. So that work is underway. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

Madam Chair, could this also be cross-referenced with the teacher education program? Because it would be nice that the teachers that would graduate from the teacher education program also have access to some of the courses that would be offered in the language translator course. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. And I think the idea right now is to have this two-year course and perhaps it could lead to another bachelor of education degree after another two years. But I think that's a little too far off in the future for me to say one way or the other and by the time those decisions are ready to be made, the Aurora College will be making its own decisions without influence from the Minister in terms of the programming. But I'm on the same wavelength as the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just looking at the line item around Skills Canada. I note there was the -- and it's quite small. But it's important to me. I've been a power up mentor before for the programs, and I think they do a lot of really great work. I know it's been a struggle for them during COVID because a lot of their stuff is going in to schools and dealing with children and youth and not being able to do so has been hard.

So I guess my first question is the extra $20,000 or $21,000 that was there in the 2021-2022 Actuals, was that a COVID bump-up?

And then could the Minister speak to whether or not we could be investing more money here in order to help Skills Canada become a bit more virtual which in the long run would help the trades programs in our smaller communities where maybe they can't travel to, say, a workshop or lab? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. So as for the $20,000 difference, I will pass it over. But we do fund Skills Canada $70,000 in here as well as another, I think $85,000 to labour market agreement. And, yes, I agree. I remember when they used to go to the regional centres and have their competitions outside of Yellowknife. I think it was great. So I'd like to work with them to make that happen again to -- you know, to get more kids, students interested in the trades. But on some more of the detail, I can ask Mr. MacDonald. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Deputy minister MacDonald.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Yeah, and that's what I thought it probably was. Again, I know it's a small line item but definitely one that I think is important.

I may have this a little bit mixed up so maybe I'll just ask for an explanation. But with this language proficiency testing, is this the testing that immigrant -- immigrants or people who are coming to the Northwest Territories that have to -- that are going through the immigration process need to take, their English proficiency, and is that offered here in the territory, and why is it no longer -- there any money there? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Yes, that is the language -- that is, as the Member described it, it is offered here provided by College Nordique. Perhaps on how that is funded, because I know that we did provide a significant amount of funding to ensure that the backlog of, you know, applications for this program were dealt with. I can ask Mr. Saturnino for some more information. Thank you.