Yes.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, if somebody qualifies for income assistance and they do not have a fixed address and they are, you know, living on the land, absolutely go and speak with your client navigator and make sure that you have that conversation with them and that you are able to apply with them. It would, again, be the same response from the first question, which is that absolutely, people can access income assistance outside of their home community. They do not need a fixed address in order to access income assistance, and that if somebody qualifies, I absolutely encourage them to follow up with their client navigator so that we can ensure they have the support that they need. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.

Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it was my understanding that ensuring that students have pathways to education and then being able to return to their home communities is something that was changed in the last Assembly, but I can absolutely commit to having that conversation with my colleague as well to ensure that we're creating pathways to education. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know my colleague asked about this, but I will say it again. I will ask this question as well.

The department used to produce an income assistance annual report. Why is this report not published anymore? Can the Minister commit to making the income assistance annual report publicly available again. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can absolutely commit to doing the annual report with income assistance. And I also just want to reiterate that part of the new program is also doing a performance management plan as well to ensure that we know how the new program is working and that we know how it is serving residents as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

I know, I know, that's okay, I'll never tire.

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up a question right off of my good colleague from Monfwi who was talking about tracking information. And she brought up a really good point about what type of information is being tracked by the department. And I suspect the Minister may not give every answer but does the Minister and the department track anything useful with respect to ways we get people off of income support and back into the working life? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that we -- this theme day could not have come at a better time because we are at the beginning of what I see as a very exciting time within the department of education and within income assistance. We are on the verge of entering into this new program. It starts in the month of July. That new program will see increased opportunities for client navigators to be able to work with income assistance clients and to be able to work on those pathways. And part of the information coming out of that will be through this performance management plan where we can take a look at what's going on, how is this impacting residents, how is this impacting communities, what does this story look like? And that, in conjunction with, for example, the business plans which tell a story about the expectation on increased income assistance clients having jobs while they're on income assistance. And the fact that this new program also creates those methods for people to be able to hold on to a lot more earned income, I think is really exciting, and I really look forward to being able to come back to this House and tell, as the Member for Monfwi says, success stories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm excited that the Minister's really excited, but I'm still curious over here as to what specific information the department tracks that we know what they're doing or how they're progressing through the system to be able to stand up on their own. So is there any other useful information outside of their age, where they live, and their gender that we can build upon to help strengthen the program and the individual as we hope that they can return back to the working world. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is asking what we previously track. And so as I'm saying that this is a new program and so going forward, we're going to have the opportunity to look at a lot more data and see what is going on. But that's not information that I have at my fingertips to be able to provide the Member right now. But I very much look forward to being able to tell the story of what this new program is doing for NWT residents and to be able to talk about those success stories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister talked about the navigators at length. So maybe she could explain the business case as to why they are there and specifically how they're going to help individuals get to where -- I think where we hope they're going to -- back into the working or education world or whatever is appropriate as it fits appropriately with the individual. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have a host of client navigators across the territory that work in small communities. They work in regional centres. And they work in Yellowknife. And these client navigators work closely with career development officers. They have, of course, a very intimate knowledge of student financial assistance, which also falls under the income security division. And so these pathways to employment, pathways to entrepreneurship, they are absolutely things that these individuals are trained to support clients through. And so whether it is somebody wanting to access training programs, whether they are wanting to go into entrepreneurship that, is something that with ITI, there is a definite really nice marriage that can happen there going forward so that people are supported in order to be able to pursue what their goals are. I think one of the changes that has happened here between going from having productive choices to not having productive choices is an acknowledgement that not everybody fits within the themed boxes that productive choices were. Productive choices forced somebody to kind of pick something from a list that maybe wasn't what they wanted to do. And what this is acknowledging is saying okay, we all have goals and we all have dreams and they don't have to fit into a box, but let's set you up with people who can help walk you through what it is that you want to do and to acknowledge or identify what that path is and how to get there. So we've got the client navigators, we've got the career development officers. We also have economic development officers over in ITI. Especially when you're talking about, you know, regional centres, a lot of these people already know one another. We've got funding opportunities within SFA, funding opportunities within ITI and other departments. We also have the ability to also set people up with apprenticeships as well or with training opportunities. There's, for example, fundamentals through Aurora College, which is an absolutely great program, and then there's also SNAP opportunities too. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It only makes me wonder do the -- are the navigators counsellors in the context of the big C counsellors, or are they just cheerleaders in the sense of just supporting advocates? And if with eliminated productive choices, how do we encourage them to create goals? And if they don't want to be involved in the navigator process and we don't require them to be productive choices -- to be involved in productive choices, does the department just sit and do nothing? Like, I'm just trying to understand how we get them involved. Thank you.

So to the first question that the Member asked, Mr. Speaker, about whether or not they're big C counsellors or little C counsellors, I'm not sure if that means are they mental health counsellors; no, they're not mental health counsellors if that's what meant. Sorry, I was talking to fast.

In regards to what type of counsellors they are, they are people who are -- they fill a role, and they provide pathways. They are professionals. They understand their department. They understand how to create connections. And one of the things that reducing the administrative barriers of this program does as well is allows client navigators more time to create more connections within communities so that they too are forming connections that they can then bring people to and connect them to.

In regards to how ECE is going to turn around and force people to take on these pathways, there are 19 of us in this room right now that weren't forced to have to take on a pathway but we did, and we were privileged enough to have the opportunity to step into that pathway. And so what this is doing is creating those opportunities to step into pathways. And I don't think that everybody needs to be forced, and I don't think that staff are going to sit by idly and not do anything. I think that there are tremendous amount of people who want opportunity in this territory, and we as a government are at an exciting point to be able to ease the path to those opportunities. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So my questions, again, are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, but this time I want to ask about Aurora College and the transition to a polytechnic university.

So the college has announced that the transition to a polytechnic university will be significantly delayed. And we hear from the college that it's because of inadequate funding from governments. We hear from the ECE Minister that it's up to the board of governors now, they're arm's length. So my question to the Minister is who can we hold accountable for the delay in the polytechnic transition? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in this House the board of governors does not have a seat and so you get to hold me accountable. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a clear commitment and statement that is certainly welcomed to everyone.

My second question is that the transition team that was set up for the polytechnic university transition, I know that it has now been disbanded, the transition team that was within ECE. Were there goals or benchmarks set for what that team needed to accomplish before it was disbanded? And if so, were those goals met? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.