Mr. Speaker, as a result of my musings and a change in receiving some instructions from my suggestions to Cabinet, what became clear to me was that I was not in any way reneging on the direction which had been agreed to, in fact, with the support of the honourable Member, that the Science Institute be decentralized. However, when I reviewed the situation I became concerned about the purpose of those decisions. I believe one of the aspects of the programming area presently absent from the Arctic College programs is in the area of science and technology. When I look at the people who are involved in the present board, I see some significant talent and expertise there which could help the college develop very important and northern relevant science and technology programs. The other aspects that concerned me, and is a role the science institute is now playing, is in the area of research. I believe it is time for us to take the initiative to give some credibility to the Arctic College
system to be involved in the area of research, particularly in science and technology.
When I became the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment Programs I took over the responsibility for the Science Institute, and I was quite concerned about the area of McGill University taking on a nutrition research project which should be conducted by a post-secondary institution in the Northwest Territories. It is my view that this is one of the tasks we should be looking forward to. I know there is some concern about how we were dealing with this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I personally called Mr. Parker, who is the chairman of the board, to suggest to him that perhaps we should be working together to develop a plan as to how we can approach the issue of decentralization of the Science Institute and how Arctic College could get involved in science and technology programming and research. I think it is a reasonable suggestion. It is my view we should also develop credibility in our northern Arctic College program and institution where we develop credibility in the area of northern science and technology. I needed the help of the board of directors and the Science Institute to go in this direction.
We have since formed a committee with Arctic College, the Science Institute and Department of Education, Culture and Employment Programs to develop a plan as to how we could do this.
This issue is a very complex one, it is not simple and it is my view that we should put all these groups together to come up with a plan to deal with this issue. I want to advise the honourable Members that this is not simply musing on my part but I thought we should, in fact, develop our northern institution with that view. Other post-secondary institutions in Canada cover the area of science and technology. I thought we should develop a plan as to how we can get our northern college into this area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.