Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. And we're always happy to move to multiyear funding agreements whenever we can. I understand the Member's concerns. I know that NGOs don't have the bridge funding that governments have. The federal funding received by Skills Canada is a little less volatile than some of the other pots, but I'm sure there are instances where they run into issues. We're always happy to meet with Skills Canada if they -- you know, if they have a proposal, if they want to request more funds, I mean we can have those discussions, so I'm definitely always open to that. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you. And I play soccer so if I ever get back to that with one of the people that work there, I will let them know that they should maybe schedule a meeting with the Minister and have a chat.

You know, I look at some of these line items and I recognize that there's been some influx of money, as mentioned to my colleague, for the Aurora College; however, given that we had the recent conversation with Giant Mine and the different proponents, I won't rehash all of that but, you know, I think this is an area where it's a good place again to get money, training, skills, and capacity into the communities outside of Yellowknife. And so I guess I just want to ask the Minister are we going to -- to me, this seems like an area we need some significant investments in. And is there a plan to start bringing more money here and really developing some of these programs instead of having them just be these little, sort of one-offs that offer a training course here and there? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. And, yes, we do receive significant funds from the federal government, and they provide those funds to all the provinces and territories and I am currently working with the other ministers of the provinces and territories to begin the negotiations of the future agreements. And I can say that we are putting a lot of effort into that. There are meetings coming up this spring or summer, and we are -- everyone is united in the call for more funding because everyone recognizes the labour shortage, the need for skilled labour, and especially the type of skilled labour we support through this. So hopefully in the next year or the year after, we have -- we'll see some bumps in these line items. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I also hope that we will be seeing bumps in these line items.

I think another piece that I became live to as an engineer and to my statement, when I was consulting, is really the lack of the intermediate age group in many professions. So in Canada with the Baby Boomers starting to retire, we have, you know, younger people coming in, but we're really missing that intermediate senior level of professional which we can see by all of the, you know, vacancies that we're looking for in the various industries.

So I guess with that in mind, how does the department help with sort of that broader succession planning, I guess for lack of a better way to call it, through some of our trade and industries? I hear the Minister mentioning that it's tough to find those trainers that have the actual skill sets. So what is the department doing to be creative to, like, ensure that we are going to have people at all levels of experience and training and ability to continue training them in the future? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. And as everyone's aware, over the past few years it's become very evident that, you know, the labour shortage that they've warned us about for years with Baby Boomers retiring, it's happening now. And we can no longer just continue doing the things the way we've done it for decades, really, because the market has changed so significantly. So we are looking at collecting data, looking at labour market trends, looking at demographics, so we can be creative, so we can get a handle on the situation and how we might be able to address it, so. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Anyways, I'm just -- in regards to Aurora College, I'm just looking under the organization structure. So under the structure, you have the Education Act that more or less created the Department of Education, Culture and Employment office. And then under that office, then you have regional DEAs and they have their own boards and there's agreements in place and they administer their own education at the local level, etcetera. So then in terms of communications, so mostly like the chairman of those DEAs will respond or report to the Minister or vice versa type of thing. So I need clarification on that because I'm assuming that's on that part. But in regards to Aurora College, now that they have their own Education Act, how does that Education Act fall under? Does that fall under the Education Act? Is that under that Act, or does that give way to create Aurora College -- sorry, Aurora College Act? I just need you to help clarify that.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. And so we have a few pieces of legislation that are fundamental to the education system in the Northwest Territories. We have the Education Act, which is primarily focused on JK to 12, but there is some -- it does reach out to post-secondary and other areas. We now have the Post-Secondary Education Act, which is something we have not had before, and it is the a ct that really regulates post-secondary education in the Northwest Territories. And other jurisdictions have it as well. We are the regulators of that sector. And then we have the Aurora College Act, which we recently amended to provide -- or to make the college truly arm's length. So that's the situation there. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'll address a few things here.

So the relationship with the college board will be between the Minister and the chair, as the Member stated. The college is actually going to be more autonomous than education bodies so it's a bit of a different relationship, but that's how it will work.

We are looking at a new program, or exploring the possibility of a new program, to work with adults, you know, who they've gone through the JK to 12 system and maybe they don't have the skills that they need to move on to trades or post-secondary. And that is a -- that's a group -- a segment of the population that perhaps could be in the workforce but just needs a bit more support to get there. So we are focusing on that to address some of the Member's concerns. We also made the changes to the student financial assistance so that if a student needs more semesters -- or we're proposing to make them. So if a student needs more semesters, they can do that as well. And I'm sorry if I missed anything but I'll hand it over. Thanks.

Thank you. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you for that, Madam Chairman. I guess the Minister maybe could convey my issue or concerns to the president of the Aurora College and let them know that if we could get this position filled right away, and it's important that -- and, again, the people in the community in my riding are saying that well, you know, geesh, we got issues in education, concerns, etcetera, but they don't know who to call. They're phoning me and saying well, when's the position going to be filled, etcetera. So if I could get you to maybe communicate that to the Department of Aurora College and their people and maybe -- and also if you don't mind getting back to me on that, a follow-up maybe on their next plan on that. Mahsi.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. And the Member has raised the position in Lutselk'e with me, and I've committed to convey that either through the department to the college, because we do still have a relationship at the officials level as we work through the transformation. But it's also -- I can -- it's also something that I can raise with the new chair once they are instated. So I can't staff those positions. I'm legally barred from interfering with the operations of the college but when an MLA brings concerns, I bring those concerns to the college. Thank you.

Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I want to thank the Minister for paying a visit to the future headquarters of the polytechnic university in Fort Smith in January. It was a really incredible visit. It was on -- it was a very cold day that day. And we went to each classroom, and all the trades were in session. And, you know, as I went through the building, I did not realize myself how important it is to hire local. M ostly all the trades are done by local -- the training is done by local Indigenous personnel who care for these students in a really incredible way. And even the trades head, the head of trades, is a local boy, Duane Macdonald, you know. And as we went through the building, it was very inviting. They were happy to see the Minister on such a personal basis. And I'm very proud to say that, you know, it'll be nice to fill all the other classrooms in that building, because it hasn't been filled since before the pandemic. And, you know, one of the things that I wanted to ask was the -- how many accredited apprenticeships still go south for their training because, you know, there's -- there was a lot of people there, and all those classrooms were all filled. And we have some unique courses there right now. One of them is the new aviation program. And the other one, of course, is the one that -- there's only one school in Canada for NAFTA, and it's in the Fort Smith campus. Those are really specialized areas.

And the only thing that I wanted to mention is that, you know, I want to make sure that we are supporting our own apprenticeships to go to the Fort Smith campus and not sending them to NAIT anymore. I wonder how we can achieve that. Thank you, Madam Chair.