Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will repeat the answer. All boards have been involved in the redrafting and redesigning of that document that we're going to make available to all Members. I apologize for the document not being available, but it will be made available to the honourable Members.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can indicate to the honourable Member that we are quite certain of more than half. In other words, we probably will get four or five out of the seven. It's the recommendation, so far from the boards, that they're all interested; the issue is what is the basis and the framework by which they're going to introduce the integrated services. We needed to develop, as the honourable Member will be aware, a framework by which we would provide those services. Unfortunately -- again I apologize to the honourable Member -- the document that I had committed to provide will be the basis by which we will offer that collection of services in the school and will be the framework by which we provide those services.

I also want to say that the boards are also involved in the actual design of that particular document so that we don't offer services from headquarters, rather than what the communities might want in their particular situation.

Thanks. Just to indicate to the honourable Member that there was an allocation to the tax-based municipalities, including Yellowknife. We're not certain right now about the status of the application. What is clear for us is that there will be a carry over of those resources. As I indicated earlier, we're looking at a potential carry over of the infrastructure program. And at the least, there are some discussions that are going on for a period of five years.

But the program that we're presently involved in is a three-year program, and the dollars that have been assigned are available for application. I have not yet seen any requests for the resources, but I believe there are still 36 applications that have come in that have now been approved and will be going forward to the management committee for their review in the very near future. But I don't know the specifics.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just some general comments about Education. I think that this department has a lot of things they can be proud of. Obviously, in some areas of education there is still a long way to go. We still have to graduate a lot more kids out of high school. We still have to stop a lot of kids from quitting school. But there have been some very significant improvements over the past number of years. I think the department is heading in the right direction. I think that we should give some accolades when they are warranted.

In the Standing Committee on Finance report, we talked about the importance of excellence from the top to the bottom of the education system, starting from the Minister of Education right through to every student. Everybody has to have the concept of excellence on their mind. We can ask no less than the very best for our students and former students. I see the work that the department has done in the new Education Act. I think they have done a very good job and I'm happy to hear that we're going to be debating the Education Act in June. Hopefully, we'll be able to get it passed. The department put many, many hours in consultations with communities and with educators and with everybody involved in education to put together this draft act.

I'm sure there will be some changes but I think the product going into the process is a very good product. I think, too, when we hear about and read about -- and we who are parents experience some of the problems in our schools -- problems with violence, problems with drugs, problems with alcohol, that we should put them into some kind of a national context because the problems are being experienced everywhere across the country, it's not just here in the Northwest Territories. They have a lot to do with changing society values, the breakdown of the family, and potentially, the influence of the mass media on kids. In fact, if we measure our bad experience with bad experiences across the country, we still come out quite good comparatively, I think.

In fact, I act from time to time as a monitor on the playgrounds at my kids' schools and some things happen there but it really is nothing to be alarmed about. I'd say, compared to friends of mine who have kids going to school down south, in Toronto for instance, where they walk through metal detectors, and where searches of lockers produce firearms and weapons of all sorts, I think that we have a lot to be thankful for here in the Northwest Territories.

Another area that we, in the Standing Committee on Finance, and I, personally, find important is to continue our standardized testing. Whenever test results come out, there is a tendency among some sectors in the education system to start to squeal and attribute blame. The fact is, I think it's really the only way we can compare apples and apples, the only way we can compare our progress, or lack thereof, with national standards. Although it's painful, if we always look at the experience as a positive learning experience and not one that after the results come out, become punitive and start blaming people. If we can learn from them and everybody looks at them for what they are, just another tool, I think it's very important that we continue to use them.

It was interesting that probably one of the -- at least at this point -- more successful attempts at education reform is taking place in Ontario. All the political parties have essentially endorsed it and I think most of the teachers' unions have endorsed it and that is one of the new principles they are coming with in Ontario. I expect to see some fairly significant changes in the Ontario education system over the next few years. I was a product of that system and at one time it was considered to be the best education system in the country, back in the late 50's and early 60's. People can remember the grand education experiments of the 60's where it was decided that individual student rights were more important than achieving any kind of standardized excellence. The students were given very wide discretion as to the subjects that they might feel like taking. If, in a given year, you didn't really feel like taking mathematics, well, that was okay because you really didn't have to take mathematics. The jury seems to be in now and most experts consider those experiments failures. The Ontario system and the Canadian standard right across the country fell pretty significantly during those periods.

We have the sad state now that a lot of kids are approaching university age and they are essentially functionally illiterate. A lot of kids don't have a lot of the basic skills in math and science that you need. I think it's very important and from what I see, the department is trying, with the Education Act, to get back to basics. We have to prepare our kids for a very complex, competitive society. We have to prepare our kids for a life which may take them beyond the community where they were born. It may take them beyond the boundaries of the Northwest Territories. In fact, it may take them beyond the boundaries of the country. The world's getting smaller and I don't think any of us, if we want our kids to take advantage of opportunities, can limit them to spending their lives in a community or in a region. It's going to depend. I'd say that kids now, when they get out of university, will have to be very diverse, they have to be very mobile, they have to be prepared to move anywhere in the world, they have to be prepared to learn at a frantic rate.

I think that what we have to do here is to put politics aside and put regionalism aside put insular thinking aside and prepare our kids, give them the best tools we can to survive in an increasingly difficult and competitive world. I think we're starting on that path here in the territories. I think we should support the department with what they are doing but I think all of us have to be very diligent to ensure that we stay very firmly on that path and that we don't lose sight of what education is all about. An education system is not there to satisfy the politicians, it's not there to satisfy the civil servants, it's not there just to satisfy the public at large. It has one major function and that is to prepare our kids for a successful life once they get into the workforce and prepare them to be productive, successful adults who can raise their families and have their jobs and make a valuable contribution to society. I think we have to remember the emphasis and the focus should always be on the students and not get carried away with all the political factors that always surround education.

I think the Minister and the staff are on the right track. It takes a lot of courage to do it because, as any of us who have been in politics for a while know, every person has their own theories about education and all of us who are parents also have a very healthily selfish feeling about the education system and it's a highly personal approach. Those of us with kids really judge the education system by the impact it has on our kids. It's a difficult thing to do for a Minister or for senior civil servants, to keep that focus and not be swayed by the emotion that surrounds changes to education by vested interests in the system.

If I could, I would like to say a few things about teachers. Oft times in this modern age, other than complimentary things are said about teachers. People talk about how teachers have long holidays, they are very well paid, et cetera, et cetera. For a moment, I'll just talk about my own experience as a parent here in the Yellowknife school system. I've had kids at Mildred Hall, Sissons and St. Joe's, both the public and Catholic systems, and I've been highly impressed by the skills and motivation of all the teachers who have taught our kids. It's a very tough job being a teacher in the 1990s. The kids are extremely demanding and it's very difficult because the mass media has really done something to the attention span of students. To maintain their interest and attention takes a lot of skill.

The world is so competitive, the pressure on teachers to produce kids who can do well year after year is immense. They are also looking after special needs kids now in their inclusive classes; they are looking after kids who have certain emotional problems; and, they are trying to deal with a lot of the social problems of society that many parents have abdicated responsibility for. So I think, generally, teachers in the Northwest Territories are doing very, very well. I think they've been quite responsible in the last round of negotiations. They've recognized the problem that the government has in the future, financially and I think they were very reasonable with the agreement they reached.

I don't think we should feel bad about the fact that we pay teachers well. There's probably no other group in society, besides the actual parents of children, who have such a profound impact on kids in their growth and evolution. I think all of us owe a debt of gratitude to the teachers that we have. I think, generally, they're doing a very good job. I think we have an excellent education system here in Yellowknife. I also think credit goes to the two school boards and the philosophy of former and present Ministers of Education of turning over more control to local people and schools is critical. I think that's the single most important element that has made the education system in Yellowknife work so well; the fact that you have parents and the community directly involved.

I like the way the system has evolved here in Yellowknife where there is a partnership between the boards, the parent advisory committees, the administration of schools and the teachers. I know all the schools where my kids have gone have welcomed parents. We can go into classes and have been involved in a lot of different ways over the years. I feel very comfortable, as a parent, going into the schools where my kids are going to school and talking to the teachers and to the principals.

Again, my point is, although there are always ways we can improve the system, let's keep it in perspective. We have a pretty darn good system of education here in the Northwest Territories. Let's come up with constructive ways to build it and ways to improve it, but in our zeal to make it better, let's not trash the important ingredients that make the system work: the administrators in the department, the teachers and the school boards across the Northwest Territories.

On that aspect of this department, for now I'll close. If I could, Mr. Chairman, I would like to talk a little bit about the employment component of the department. I think the whole area of employment, welfare reform, finding new and innovative ways to get people back into the workforce in a constructive way, to maximize job opportunities, to deal with more innovative ways of people more meaningfully sharing in society at a time when governments have less and less money is an incredible challenge and it's a challenge that's bedeviled governments for the last decade. We're not the first government or the only government that's tried to deal with these issues.

How do you maximize employment opportunities in the mining, oil and gas, hydro power sectors? How do we ensure that the community infrastructure programs that we fund are timed in such a way that we maximize both employment opportunities and economic benefits? People for years have been trying to get people out of the welfare sector not just here, but there are third and fourth generation welfare families in the United States. Some of the best minds in North America and elsewhere have tried to come to grips with the reality that a far-too-high percentage of our population is out of the employment mainstream. In fact, for many of them, for a number of reasons -- some psychological, physical, emotional or educational -- don't really feel they can get back into it. How do you deal with that and still maintain some measure of compassion for people who, for legitimate reasons, no longer fit into the mainstream?

There are different ways to do it. There's the Margaret Thatcher British model or the Ronald Reagan American model where you essentially trash them. You withdraw support, stop paying for lunches for poor kids, stop programs in the ghettos. That has a lot of popular support and I'm personally, as everyone knows here, pretty much a fiscal conservative. But that, in the long term doesn't solve your problem. What's happening in the United States and in large parts of the United Kingdom is that you set up a permanent underclass of people who are, in fact, destabilizing your society.

If you look at the major cities of the United States and increased drug use, generations are now being destroyed by crack and crime, and violence is increasing at a horrendous rate. That all, at least partially, can be linked back to the issues we're trying to deal with. How do you get people to become, again, a productive part of society? The answer is not more policemen and more jails. When we took the trip to South Africa learning about diamonds we went to Johannesburg and it's a city under seige. It's no longer the political climate, it's a very violent city with one of the highest crime rates in the world.

Anyone who has a dealership for barbed wire is a very rich man because every single house has got barbed wire around it and there are alarms, dogs and guns. But they're now dealing with a problem; it's a problem Nelson Mandela is trying to deal with. How do you get people back to work and part of society?

I think here in the Northwest Territories we're on the right track because we're not following either a left or right ideology. It is what makes sense, what is a practical combination of the two. Obviously, we are going to have greater and greater fiscal problems until we get independent sources of money. On the other hand, it hasn't worked everywhere else just to throw people out into the cold. So, what we're trying to do is find the balance and I commend the department for their initiatives.

One observation, for whatever it's worth, is that in other places where income support reform and welfare reform -- whatever you want to call it -- have been implemented, historically what's happened is they overcomplicate it. Almost everywhere else -- and remember when we did the Beatty report -- we had some people who did some work for us who had done some work in Manitoba on this idea. They say that it's such a complex field that any time you make a change here, there's a ripple effect through the whole system everywhere you look and unless you're very careful, at the end of the day your recommendations are so complex and so bureaucratic that they're functionally useless to you. I think it's especially true here in the Northwest Territories where we need procedures and processes that are as simple as possible, and as clean cut as possible. You can put together incredible point systems and processes moving people from the permanently unemployed to the semi-permanently unemployed, and there's a certain number of points they could move. You could make it that only the civil servants who actually are consultants who put it together could ever really understand it.

Again, when it doubt, make it simple. Just make the whole thing simple. All the experts in the world can have it so confusing that it will be totally irrelevant to you. So I say to the department continue what you're doing. If we can find ways to get people off the unemployment rolls back into society, I think it's great, I think it's very, very important that we do exactly that. If we take it back to education, the more kids we get through school, the more kids that have that education. Again, education is a wonderful tool to a productive life.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to give a few general thoughts about the direction the department is taking, some ideas I have and I might have some specific comments or questions when we get into the details. With that, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

If I might say one thing, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the honourable Member for the constructive comments. I also want to say despite the fact that we may have some differences sometimes even with the Standing Committee on Finance in terms of the approach, I want to say to the Standing Committee on Finance over the past several years how much we've appreciated some of the advice that has been given. We may not always agree, but the fact is that the general direction we want to take is generally the same. We all believe that the basis for where we go and the success of our system will prove in the result of those students who graduate in the end are as successful, as the honourable Member has mentioned, in participating in a productive job or a productive part of the community.

I also want to say to the honourable Member, I think he pointed out a couple of very important things. We have been successful. That fact is that we've turned some of the systems in the north, even in the last government, around to a point now where people can be more positive about the potential of our young people. You go from 79 per cent in 1981 to over 85 per cent of students who are now attending school more regularly. Even in that small percentage, it means large numbers. You have situations where students are staying in school longer, the participation of students in high school has increased from about 40 per cent to 75 per cent. That's a pretty significant number and it's all because of the support that has been given over the past several years by this Assembly and by previous assemblies. So you're starting to see results of the priority that has been given to education.

I also want to say that the college enrolments in our adult student population have increased to over 1,500 full-time students and over 8,000 part-time students. If you look at those numbers, you start to see some of the successes that are resulting from the support that has been given by this Assembly.

The other point is that there are more aboriginal teachers now than there have ever been. The strategy of reaching 50 per cent, I believe, has been reached. I want to say to the Members, for instance in the case of Yellowknife, the Members of the Assembly for Yellowknife who were supportive of the teacher education program here in Yellowknife...We would not have been successful in terms of getting that around and turning the views of the city around without the support of Members of this Assembly. And we see the success of it, those students are staying in the program. I think that's the same situation in the Baffin, the Keewatin, the North Slave, the Kitikmeot and the Mackenzie Delta/Beaufort area. So you're starting to see situations where you're seeing very positive results.

I just want to say that the points that the honourable Member has raised, the numbers are starting to show that these turn-arounds are starting to happen and they're positive. The honourable Member also mentioned that not all these changes are immediate, but I think the more we maintain the positive of ensuring that our system provides for excellence for our students; in other words, quality of program, quality of service, I think that will result in more and more graduates and more successful students. So I just wanted to say thank you to the honourable Member for his comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The last point first, with regard to the regional industrial strategy. Just so that it's clear, it's certainly not our intention to duplicate studies. I think one of the problems is that there's no need for us to be going after the same information twice. I can advise the honourable Member that it's certainly not our intention to compete for information nor is it our intention to spend more money on the same information. I believe that we were doing a joint project under the industrial adjustment strategy and we were dealing primarily with sectoral information. If there's any specific problems then we need to be advised of the concerns, specifically the concern that the region might have because, as I said, it's not our intention to duplicate the information.

On the matter of the renewable resources, I not aware of any reports that are being done. If it's a North Slave issue, we'll ensure that we're not competing for information or spending money for duplicate information. We'll, through our department and certainly through our deputy minister, intervene and ensure that there's not competition for the same information.

On the matter of the relocation, we've had discussions with the director. The important element of moving the offices has to be that we have to recognize the financial situation that we're in and ensure that it's cost-effective if there are any moves to be made. There are certainly no additional resources that are going to be available. There will be more resources available for programming, but certainly not necessarily for administration. We'll work with the board to see if that is a cost-effective move on their part and we'll try to be of assistance to them but it will not be, as I said, with the view of costing the department and the board more money.

The other point I wanted to make on the TEP program, I think all the regions are concerned, particularly in the west. In the McGill situation in the Nunavut area, with the Nunavut students, we don't have a problem in this particular situation. Our problem seems to be with the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and we have to rethink our relationship and the way in which we do our business with the university so that it ensures that the program that we're offering is consistent. In other words, that our criteria for students is higher than for students in Saskatchewan. The fact is, at least last year, the requirements for our students were supposedly higher. In other words, it was not the original arrangement that was reached with the University of Saskatchewan. In that sense we were not happy with that. We have similar concerns. We'll maintain our continuing relationship with the University of Saskatchewan as long as there is recognition for the program that we're offering which is supposedly similar and consistent, and that we ensure that we protect the credits that our students should be receiving as part of that particular program. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.