Thank you. So if someone needs to or wants to take their apprenticeship courses and they're offered at the college, we will support them to go to the college. If they would like to take a program that's not offered by the college, then we'll support them to go elsewhere. But, you know, if they would just prefer to go to somewhere in Alberta for a program that is being offered at the college, we -- unless there is a -- I mean, there may be exceptions but generally the rule is that if a program is offered at the college, we support them to go to the college only. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

On page 60, where it has the labour development and advanced education active positions, under headquarters and North Slave, which those two should be together. You know, they're always -- I don't know who separates these but there's 33 positions there, and the rest is 26. So I'm just wondering, you know, you have an increase of four positions in headquarters and another three in North Slave. Can you tell me what those positions are? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for ECE.

Thank you. So the reason it's separated is because we have regional offices that deliver services directly to the public and we have those in each of the regions, including the North Slave. Separate from that is the headquarters office, and they do the headquarters work. So the same way that our CDOs, or career development officers in Hay River and Fort Smith, they're in Yellowknife. And that's the recognition of that.

The increase in positions is a -- and, you know, I'll hand it over. It's a bit of an adjustment based on some previous changes. So I think it's more technical than anything else, so I'll hand it to the deputy minister. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy minister MacDonald.

Thank you. Member for Thebacha.

I'm very, very proud that we have this, the polytechnic headquarters in Fort Smith but I would -- you know, there's two positions. We talk about decentralization, and we have two borrowed positions that are here in Yellowknife from the polytechnic headquarters. And as the community of Fort Smith, including the leadership, has spoken to the Minister, we would like those two positions returned to Fort Smith and that senior management. I know that the board will -- he won't be able to do it but, you know, it's -- I want to bring it up here for clarity and for -- to be on the record that they should be returned to Fort Smith. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. And as the Member knows -- or as the Member stated, that I can't make that commitment obviously on behalf of the college but it is on the record. It's on the record from this conversation and many letters and many other discussions we've had in the House. So the position of the Member and Fort Smith leadership is well known. Thank you.

Thank you. Did you have anything further, Member for Thebacha?

My last statement that I want to make is that I'm very happy that the board will be named next week. I look forward to a board of governors for the college. Long overdue. And I will support them in any way I can. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Well, one of the questions I was going to ask was the position increase for headquarter and three in North Slave, and that's all in Yellowknife. And I have four communities. There's Aurora College campus or office or building in Whati. They don't have their office -- they don't have a building of their own, but. So there's Whati and Behchoko but there's nothing in Gameti and Wekweeti. And there's, like, 4,000 of Tlicho -- or close to 4,000 people living Tlicho region. And we have a lot -- we have the highest unemployment rate in the NWT. And I'm very grateful for the recent announcement that Tlicho government just made with the federal government. And in the past, I know that we didn't use it because of lack of trades program or, you know, the apprenticeship. We've been using a lot of southern workers with the trades program so I'm happy for that, you know. So hopefully we're not going to use those people anymore, but.

So I am very supportive of community-based program. So I was hoping that this -- you know, this North Slave -- because nothing mentioned about Tlicho in here so I was hoping that there was going to be more positions going into Tlicho region because of -- with the, sorry, due to the recent announcement as well, you know, with the federal government. So I just wanted to ask if there's -- if there's going to any more position going to Tlicho region any time soon?

Minister of ECE.

Thank you. So what we're proposing here is this upcoming fiscal year. So this is the next year. So there are no additional positions in this area being proposed for the Tlicho region. The Member can stay tuned for perhaps some other positions in some other areas in the Tlicho region that she might be seeing sometime soon though. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Thank you. Well, I would like to see something, you know, like, because I'm sure the people would like to see something because there's a lot of young people that don't want to leave their community. They don't want to -- because with a housing shortage, people don't want to leave, you know, because if they leave then they're going to lose their housing, especially with the public units and leaving their family, their language, their culture behind is -- it's hard on some people, some of the young people, so they would rather do a lot of the training. And if we had more of that in small communities, there would be -- we can train more people from our regions, from our communities. It's not just my region that I'm talking about.

It's for other regions as well, you know. And just like Fort Smith, our colleague said that there's a lot of trades people there and if we have, you know, a program like that in each region, I'm sure we could graduate lots of the apprenticeship -- trades people in our regions. So that's why I'm just -- is there any -- I just wanted to ask about the community-based program. Is there any plan of introducing or having any of some of these apprenticeship programs offered in the small communities?

Thank you. Minister of ECE.

Thank you. So the financial supports that the department offers, they're available to any apprentices or employers -- you know, eligible employers anywhere. In terms of the programming being based in communities, part of the transformation of the college, you know, involves ensuring there is a presence in every community in the territory. What that presence will look like will be different elsewhere, but the idea is to make access to training more accessible in communities. So one of the central features of this transformation into a polytechnic is what the Member is talking about. We want to give more training opportunities to people in communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Did you have any further questions, Member for Monfwi?

No. No, I think I just -- well, I'm more interested in the community-based programs so I just -- I would like to see more of that in small communities, so. And if there's, you know, a plan on doing something about it, you know, that's good. Then I guess we will just wait and see what kind of plan they have in place. Yeah, thank you.

Any final comments, Minister?