Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have a few general comments. I am mainly concerned about the college system. I had expressed a number of concerns earlier in this session and the last session about the manner in which the student residence was being changed in the Baffin region. I have since been barraged with information about the issue, including a lot of correspondence that went on between the deputy minister and officials of the Baffin divisional board, or the Minister and the Baffin divisional board. This correspondence is quite enlightening, and does satisfy me that the departments agenda to close or phase out the Ukiivik residence was discussed with the divisional board of education some time in advance.
However, Mr. Chairman, I still maintain that the first notice that I got of it, as an MLA, was reading the bald statement in the 2010 education strategy when it was tabled last fall, that the residences would be closed. I still feel that although consultation might have taken place with the education boards, MLAs were somewhat left out of the picture until quite recently. However, that has been corrected; we were interviewed by the consultant doing the study. I call Avery Cooper the "education consultant" because they seem to be doing all the work for education. They must be very good or have good contacts within that department; I don't know what it is about that firm. They did interview Nunavut MLAs and I am now more satisfied that the department is aware that the residence in Baffin cannot be shut down summarily this coming year without a proper transition plan being put in place. I believe one of the elements of that plan has to be assurances that there are academic programs available in the communities in the Baffin region.
The other aspect of the study that I don't think has been properly emphasized is the importance of trades training in the Baffin region. It is a theme that I am going to return to when I make some comments about college funding. Even if we have high school programs, including academic programs, in our communities in Baffin, there are still students who will lack local facilities if they want to pursue trades training. This is another area where I think the regional centre -- with its superior trades shops at the regional high school -- and then the regional residence -- with its residence facilities as an alternative to home boarding in a crowded community -- may fill an important educational need in the Baffin.
So I do hope, as changes are thrust upon the region, that they will not take place at the expense of academic training and of trades training for community residents as well as students from my constituency.
Mr. Chairman, my main concern about this budget is something that is familiar to the Minister, I am beginning to wonder why we established two colleges, East and West -- they are still not even named. I really wonder why we divided the college system in the Northwest Territories. I know that the reason, ostensibly, is to prepare for Nunavut. The Department of Education is the first department that is putting systems in place which will prepare for training in Nunavut and will allow for a smooth transition in Nunavut. But the problem I have, Mr. Chairman, is that we only have a partial college system in Nunavut, and one of the obvious deficiencies is in trades training.
The Minister tabled a return to written question just the other day, in which he openly admitted that trades training is base funded by the GNWT only at College West; nine instructor positions and $860,000.
What I fail to understand, Mr. Chairman, is how are students from Nunavut to get trades training if the Nunavut Arctic College doesn't have any positions or funding to offer trades training. Since what is now College West was delivering trades training for the whole Northwest Territories, it would have seemed to me that when the college was divided, some of the resources in College West -- which presumably were justified by students from Nunavut -- would have been transferred to the Nunavut Arctic College. Not all of the resources, maybe not even half of the resources, but some of the resources. We have ended up with none.
For a high priority area, such as trades training in Nunavut --where people want to take advantage of the employment opportunities that are going to flow from new infrastructure being created in connection with Nunavut, not to mention building houses and schools which one can predict will be continuing activities in Nunavut, judging by the birth rate -- our students have no local access to trades training. And they still have to journey far away from home and family to a location where -- I think the Minister will probably know this -- for better, for worse, the success rate of Nunavut students has not been good.
The same problems emerge with nursing training, and the same problems emerge in other areas, such as heavy equipment operator training and driver education training. I am sure that I don't need to explain that these are areas where training will help create employment.
There also seem to be serious inequities in the support available to student services in College East and College West. So I think we have two new colleges but they are lopsided in terms of funding and in terms of programs. I have to ask the Minister how could he have possibly set up two colleges where the base funding seems so inequitable. I just don't know how he allowed this to happen. I guess I'm wondering, Mr. Chairman, why do we bother setting up two colleges if the Nunavut Arctic College doesn't have the resources to deliver trades training, a fundamental priority in Nunavut?
The information tabled the other day in the House confirms my worst fears that, in fact, there is no equity in the funding. There were no efforts made to balance funding. The college was simply divided on the basis of a geographical line, without any effort to equitably reallocate existing resources. I know there is a new college funding allocation system in place which will, in future, distribute GNWT program and service contribution funding on an equitable basis, according to a formula. This is good news, Mr. Chairman, but it doesn't help deal with the historic inequities that were inherited and were not adjusted when the college was divided.
I've ranted and raved about this before in this House, Mr. Chairman. Last fall, I begged the Minister to do something about this before the transfer took place. I pleaded with the Minister to do something. Now, we're faced with a fait accompli. There are two new colleges and two new boards and I think its going to be extremely difficult to claw back funding, once given. I know the new college board in Nunavut -- or I should say College East, I'm sorry, that's the official term -- is concerned about this issue. I believe they've written to the Minister, or expressed their concern to the Minister at their first board meeting that they have little or no funding for trades training.
I guess that's one of my main concerns, Mr. Chairman. I'm not asking for new money. I know there's not a lot of new money. But, what I would have hoped is that a Minister responsible for college programs across the Northwest Territories would have had the courage to eliminate some of these historic inequities at the time the new colleges were set up. I think that would have been the time to do it. It may be much more difficult to do now.
Mr. Chairman, there are some good things in the budget. I want to commend the Minister for the additional funds that have been allocated to special needs education. I think this is commendable. I noted from his opening remarks that he's restoring some funding -- that was a source of concern last year -- to the college base, of $1 million. I think this is commendable. I know there is not a lot of new money to work with and I believe that a crude analysis would suggest that some of the special needs funding has come at the expense of contributions for regular teaching positions in the K-12 system. In other words, the pupil/teacher ratio may have to inch up a little bit because of the increased special needs funding. Mr. Chairman, if that's the price we have to pay for improving services for special needs kids, then I think the department and the Minister have done the right thing.
I think it's well documented that in a classroom -- despite popular feeling -- increasing the size by one or two kids, doesn't substantially impair the quality of education, even though many members of the public feel it's undesirable. What can impair the effectiveness of a class, however, is if there aren't resources to help the children with special needs, whether they be gifted or in need of attention because of physical or other educational disabilities or needs. I think it's commendable that this money has been put in place.
I also want to say, Mr. Chairman, that I commend the Minister and his department for the work that's been done in moving the Education Act towards modernization. I believe the department is committed to having this act amended and updated during the life of this Assembly. I fully support this. I think they've worked hard on it and achieved, by and large, good results. I'm also familiar with the consultation process that's being followed on the income support reform because I recently attended part of a workshop held in Iqaluit. I think that the focus group approach has proved effective with the Education Act and will prove effective in the area of income support reform.
So, there are a lot of good things that the department and Minister are doing, not all of which I've mentioned. But, I can't get this issue of a half-college being funded in Nunavut out of my craw. I just want to raise that again as a fundamental concern: inequities and unfairness in Arctic College base funding. I just don't know what the answer is. I don't know if I have to tell my constituents not to worry, that they can still go to Fort Smith and have full access to trades training there. It hasn't worked in the past, Mr. Chairman. It's a wonderful community, but Inuit don't succeed there. That is why a teacher education program was created in Nunavut and that is why other teacher education programs have been created in a field-based manner.
We've got to do better than this if we want to train tradespeople in Nunavut. And, I'm not just talking about the Nunatta Campus, Mr. Chairman; I'm talking about locations throughout Nunavut. Let me say that I acknowledge that there are some very sophisticated physical facilities in Fort Smith that can't easily be replaced and they will perhaps have to be relied on long after 1999, Mr. Chairman. I am not suggesting that we should replicate those sophisticated facilities. But, surely, for especially the introductory years of trades training -- where we have carpentry shops probably almost in every one of our major communities, if we looked -- we have facilities to teach the early years of electrical, welding and other trades.
Can we not, with the leadership of the Minister, develop a plan to allocate these resources so that they can be of benefit to residents from all parts of the territories? I think the good people who work in Fort Smith are quite open to this. I've known heavy equipment instructors who have gone out and trained heavy equipment operators in Lake Harbour and have been glad to do it. I've met some of them. They were thrilled to do it. Maybe we should continue to rely on these people, rather than eliminating their positions. I'm just saying, our perception in Nunavut is that we've been left out of trades training in the process of creating a new college.
I don't want to harp on this, Mr. Chairman. The Minister knows of my concern. The department has generously provided me with briefings. But, for some reason, I'm still not satisfied. Those are my comments, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.