Order please. The matter here, and the question before you, is a matter deleting $5000, not the matter with regard to the relevance or the quality of programs and services. So I ask all honourable Members to review the question of whether or not we will delete $5000. To the motion, the honourable Member for Iqaluit.

Well Mr. Chairman, if all we can say is whether we can delete the $5000 or not, then I am not going to be able to have much to say. We should not delete the $5000. It is a worthwhile program to give parents the option of keeping their kids at school for extended grades, and the $5000 is to plan that initiative. So I think parental choice and community support are critical, and I think it is in Pond Inlet, I think it is quite unfair to tell those citizens that they do not have the right, just because they do not happen to live in a large centre that can justify a high school. Thank you.

Thank you. To the motion. Mr. Todd.

Insufficient Data Regarding Quality At Community High Schools

Nobody, repeat, nobody is trying to impede the aspirations of the people of Pond Inlet as it relates to the education of their children.

---Applause

There is insufficient evidence being provided by this Minister that shows that the quality of education with the community high school program is meeting the needs of the children. Provide us with that evidence, and we will support it. It is not a $5000 issue here; it is an $8.6 million issue. That is our long-term financial obligation.

We are talking about policy. We are talking about, is this policy of developing high schools in the communities the proper policy for educating our children? That is all we are talking about here, not whether it is the aspirations of parents, or whether it is the aspirations of a particular individual or a particular group. There is insufficient data that has been provided to us so far, as far as we are concerned in the standing committee on finance, for us to proceed with these kinds of expenditures, and we have asked the Minister to provide this to us. What is the long-term high school policy of the territorial government? That is all we are asking with this resolution, nothing else. It could come back in again. You could do it with a special warrant. There are all kinds of ways to get around this.

Thank you. To the motion. Ms. Cournoyea.

Mr. Chairman, the motion is to delete $5000. I cannot support the motion, because I believe the community needs that $5000 to begin their planning and answering the questions in their community. The community has asked and put forward their request and their requirements and what we are doing, if we take the $5000 away, is saying we will delay that for another year until certain other actions are put in place.

I believe this $5000 may very well work well. Maybe there will not be a major expenditure down the line, as it is tied to in this budget, if the community is given the opportunity of maybe just exploring that question anyway. So I cannot support taking away $5000 from a community so that they can begin discussing the extension in grades. Thank you.

To the motion. Mr. Dent.

Thank you. To the motion. Mr. Pudluk.

Reasons For High School At Pond Inlet

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In listening to the comments from the Members relating back to the motion, I cannot support the motion for these reasons: In the High Arctic nobody really knows for sure exactly how the High Arctic is accessible, and it is very hard up there weather-wise and depending on distance, and there is hardly any daylight in the wintertime. There have been people that go to Pond Inlet to go to school from my community of Resolute Bay, because in my community of Resolute Bay it only goes up to grade eight and there is no expectation. We do not expect to get high school grades in my community or in Grise Fiord. They can only go up to Pond Inlet to take their grade 12.

This planning money of $5000 is to be used for the future generation. There are capital projects that are being made in certain communities, and when they get deferred it takes a long time for them to be brought back to the capital estimates again. I will not be supporting the motion because my grandchildren's children will be going to that school, so they can go to a school that is not too far from where they live, either from Grise Fiord or Resolute Bay, because Pond Inlet is closest to those communities. So I will not be in support of the motion. Thank you.

Thank you. To the motion. Mr. Pollard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if there are some double standards at work here. The standing committee on finance has made it absolutely clear to this government that it must live up to its commitments, and last year, if you look back to the capital estimates, we committed $50,000 to this particular project. Nevertheless, there were $50,000 voted by this House, and that was a commitment; and I have said that we will try, as a government, to live up to the commitments that the previous government made, and we will do that. I realize that some of the projects that were in there last year are not in there this year, and we have said we will bring them forward again.

Order, please. Mr. Pollard.

Mr. Chairman, it seems that the standing committee on finance talks out of both sides of its mouth. It says on one hand, "You must live up to your commitments." I agree to do that, sir. But in the next instance they are in here with motions saying, "You must delete this from the capital book." So there is no consistency.

It seems to me, also, that there were a number of motions passed by this House, on the recommendations of the standing committee on finance, to extend grades in communities in this particular area and to take the money from Yellowknife in order to do that. I do not think you were provided with any more information to make those decisions than you are getting on the Pond Inlet decision. So when I hear Members saying to this House, "Well, show us why," I say they want to be shown why in this instance, but in the other instances, where it was their idea, it was perfectly fine, "We will go with the status quo, we will go with the information given us." So I will not be supporting the motion, Mr. Chairman, because I do not think we should be supporting double standards. Thank you.

Thank you. To the motion. Mr. Allooloo.

Life Very Different In North Baffin

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will not be supporting the motion. As my friend, the Member for the High Arctic, stated, the life in North Baffin is very different from the life that exists in South Baffin, and especially a community like Yellowknife. It is totally different. Those students have an opportunity to attend high schools in their own community. Some of them cannot survive in a Yellowknife-type setting or even in an Iqaluit-type setting. So we are giving them a chance to at least have grade 12 in their own home communities, where the parental support is there, the grandparent support is there, and their friends are there.

As my friend from the High Arctic mentioned, there are kids attending high school in Pond Inlet coming from Resolute, Arctic Bay and Clyde River, because life in Iqaluit is too different from their own community. Pond Inlet is similar to Arctic Bay, Resolute and Clyde River. Mr. Chairman, for those kids who have an opportunity to attend high school in their home community, the chance would not be there if that service was not available in their own community.

Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Mr. Chairman, I was not going to make a comment but I feel that I have to. First of all, I do not know if I really agree with what the Minister of Finance has stated because I want to indicate, for the record, he says that they would live up to last year's commitments, and in last year's budget book they also anticipated and approved $100,000 to renovate J.B.T. Elementary School in Fort Smith; and in this year's budget book there is nothing to address anything on renovations. I want to note further, for the record, that they did not spend one dollar on renovations for J.B.T. Elementary School out of that $100,000. They took the money and used it elsewhere.

Order please. I just want to indicate to the Members again that the question is the matter of deleting $5000. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

I apologize. I know I should have stayed with the motion put forth, but I am somewhat disappointed with the way the motion is being debated. However, I did want to state that the concern that I had in respect to concurring with the standing committee on finance in regard to a junior/senior high school in Pond Inlet was that, first of all, there appeared there was no policy in respect to junior high schools in the Territories. It also further commits us as a Legislature to look at future dollars, not only in the amount anticipated as stated by the chairman of the standing committee on finance, but I think it was to the tune of $11 million because it went for a junior high school with $8.6 million plus an additional five classrooms for Pond Inlet for $3.5 million. So we were concerned about future commitments as a result of this $5000 approval, without the justification of the need which was presented to us.

I would like to know, and I think I asked that in the standing committee on finance, what year was this high school built? It is not as if there is not a high school there now that addresses grade 12. There is. Grade 12 is available, from my understanding, in Pond Inlet. It seems there has not been justification to decide on whether a new one is needed, and until we can get that justification for the expenditures of those dollars, we cannot concur with those dollars. That is the concern that I have as a committee Member in respect to this motion.

Mr. Todd.

Mr. Chairman, I have been known to put my foot in my mouth; I have never been known to speak out of both sides of my mouth. The point we are trying to make here -- I just want to clarify a point that Mr. Pollard made with respect

to the high schools, saying we are speaking out of both sides of our mouths -- that request here to adjust the capital budget was based upon a cabinet request, not a SCOF request, to meet the high school needs that they brought forward, not what we brought forward.

To the motion to delete $5000.

Question.

Motion To Delete $5000 For School Project Pond Inlet, Carried