Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Legislative Assembly, we are working to improve our organization so that it operates more efficiently, gives people more authority for programs in communities, and offers improved programs and services to the people of the Northwest Territories. Later in this session, I will be tabling the strategic plan for Education, Culture and Employment, which was developed in consultation with the people of the Northwest Territories. The plan will guide the development and delivery of our programs and services into the next century.

As everyone knows, capital planning is an important process in the department which results in the physical infrastructure necessary for the support of departmental programs. Education, Culture and Employment's capital planning process has undergone a number of changes in recent years, which I believe are making it more effective and responsive to the needs of people across the Northwest Territories.

Following the recommendations of this committee, the department has revised its planning process to give more careful consideration to critical factors such as trends in population. We continue to discuss capital planning with our partners in education to improve upon and refine these methods.

We have received approval for new capital standards and criteria which now provide for projects which are modern and reflective of program needs. The department continues to update its infrastructure inventory that documents our current facilities. The inventory will assist us and our delivery partners in tracking trends on demographics and user rates, and will help with the identification and anticipation of needs much more quickly than before. We want our capital planning process to be able to anticipate and meet capital needs in a pro-active way, rather than responding to situations after they have occurred.

Although there have been changes to the proposed projects in the department's capital plan recently, these are simply the result of refining the planning process and of improved consultation, and we expect fewer changes in the future.

We are aware, however, that events could occur that will quickly change the population characteristics in a community or region, such as, for example, the establishment of a diamond mine or a new gold mine close to a community. I would like to assure this committee that our planning process is flexible enough to accommodate this sudden change, however, our government's ability to respond to the financial demand would be more problematic.

Although these refinements have improved our ability to equitably allocate our capital resources, Education, Culture and Employment faces a number of challenges in its capital planning. Financial restraint across government is limiting capital resources, but the need for program services continues to increase. Some of this increase has resulted from the natural growth in the Northwest Territories population, which is the highest in the country. More of the increase has also resulted from a rise in participation rates as students stay in school longer, and through such initiatives as the extension of secondary grades into the communities and as a result, increases in students dropping back into school.

In the past five years, the number of students enrolled in senior secondary grades has almost doubled -- in 1989-90 there were 1,382 students enrolled, compared to 2,695 in 1993-94.

Education, Culture and Employment is now accommodating a greater number of programs through its capital plan than it has previously. For instance, the department is now responsible for the early childhood program, which was transferred from the Department of Social Services. Although we now have capital standards and criteria for child care facilities, and, while we can all agree on the need for these services...