Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Financial Management Board Secretariat is actually taking the lead in assessing the bids that have come in on the request for proposal that went out earlier this year. That has closed and I understand that an assessment of the proposals is under way and I am sure we will hear some announcement in the not too distant future from the Minister responsible for the FMB as to a recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I understand it, there were three responses to the RFP. As I said, I do not know yet whether there are any results to the assessment on the RFP, and would expect that we should have some announcement on that fairly soon. We had hoped that we would be able to see a start within the course of the next 12 months or so, should one of the proposals be acceptable. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, and it is on the subject of the Tree of Peace Education Funding. Last week I made a statement in the House in regard to this good organization and the fine work that it is doing in our community and throughout the North. I attended the Annual Assembly of the Tree of Peace Friendship Centre and issues were raised during that meeting that I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister. The delegates to the Assembly adopted a resolution asking the Minister to investigate what they perceive as funding practices that discriminate against the centre's adult education programme. Basically, they are asking why some adult education students get funding in other programs, while people in their program do not. I made a few phone calls and discovered this issue is not as cut and dried as it appears, and I guess I would like to ask the Minister to explain the policy in funding adult education students. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, adult basic education has never been supported by the Student Financial Assistance Program, so in the past there has never been any financial support provided to the students by this government who have been taking programs in adult basic education. In the past, Human Resources Development Canada had provided training allowances for adult learners. As I understand the changes in their program though, these training allowances are no longer being offered. I suspect that what the Member is perhaps hearing about is the $10.00 per day incentive which has been allowed to participants of the program investing in people, or the northern skills development program. This was a $10.00 per day incentive which was provided to social assistance recipients who were taking these programs which were set up on a "cost-shared" basis originally two years ago between this government and the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the explanation from the Minister and I may get back to that particular question. I have some others that I would like to deal with, with regard to the Tree of Peace funding. I am told that since 1971 the Territorial Government provided money to the Tree of Peace for rent, to rent classroom space for its adult education program. This funding has now been stopped, and I wonder if the Minister can tell me why the funding was cut off?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first off, I would like to concur with the Member in his assessment of the programs offered by the Tree of Peace. I think the Department has been very supportive of the Tree of Peace because we see the programs as being effective, and I would point out that in spite of the fact that over the course of the last two years support by this government for adult basic education has been reduced by 25 per cent as a result of the fiscal climate that we are in. It was not until this fiscal year that the Tree of Peace saw any reduction to their funding. The core funding has only been reduced by 5 per cent and the Member is right, they have now also been forced to look for rental space. The rental space has become a problem because this government adopted a position that we could no longer undertake charity leases and any lease that was undertaken as a charity had to be underwritten with the dollars being transferred from one department to Public Works and Services who were the lease holders. So it would have meant a substantial increase in the budget in order to maintain the sort of contribution that had been given to the Tree of Peace. We would like to emphasize that the cuts to that organization are certainly not as large as what has been felt across the Territories, in a reduction to what is available for adult basic education. As I said, over the past two years we have had to reduce our budget by 25 per cent in the adult basic education field. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, again I want to thank the Minister for that explanation. My area of concern is that our cuts were initially aimed at administration and management programs. This seems to be a very important front line program. I wonder, because of that, if the Minister could have another look at this particular program to see if he could re-assess, certainly the rent area, seems to me, to be an extremely important area so that the Tree of Peace can have money for holding classroom sessions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the magnitude of the cuts that we have had to take in Education, Culture and Employment have meant that we have gone way past administration for cuts. We are talking about cuts across the board for programs. We are talking about things like increasing the teacher/pupil ratio so that students in school are going to have to work in classrooms that have gotten much larger. The Member will have heard me in this House being questioned by other Members who have asked why there is no adult basic education being offered in their communities. We at this point in time only offer core-funded programs in 35 of all of our communities in the Northwest Territories and cannot afford to expand them at a time when the funding is being reduced by 25 per cent.

Earlier this year, in recognition of the special problem that the Tree of Peace found, because they were told that they were not going to get the charity lease at the last minute, and did not have a chance to go out and look for space, we were able to assist the Tree of Peace to the tune of some $6,000 to help them get through the last half of the school year in space, but, at that time, I warned the Executive Director of the Tree of Peace that there would not be an opportunity to continue that kind of funding. We have tried to provide as much advance notice to groups like the Tree of Peace that the funding would be reduced in order to give them the best opportunity to search out alternatives, so I guess the answer to the Member's question is, I am afraid I do not have any extra money.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I sympathize with the Minister we do not have the money, and I understand that. Yet I am torn about many issues, and one of course is that we do have a terrible graduation rate out of schools in the Northwest Territories, and I think we have to keep that in mind. We therefore, because of this terrible graduation rate, need also concentrate on the adult education. I wonder if the Minister could work on that program to see what can be done to concentrate on the adult education programs. He himself has stated we do not have it in all communities in the Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I recognize the importance of adult education. I think that the Department and this House demonstrated a commitment to that in approving the budget for this year. The federal government had withdrawn from their cost-shared program with this investing in people program which saw $8 million being invested in adult basic education over the course of two years, cost-shared between the Federal Government and this government, in spite of there being no federal contribution at all, this government still managed to continue to fund an investing in people program, or a program like that, this year to the tune of $2 million, so we have gone out of our way to try and find funding if we can. But, I am afraid that, at this point, I was given a certain target with which to work in the department, and to meet that target, we have had to make some tough decisions, and I think that it is not just in this area. We have made tough decisions in the schools' contributions, we have made tough decisions in Culture, we have made tough decisions all across the board. The bottom line is that unless this Legislature votes to give my department more money, I can not do what the Member asks. Thank you.