Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the $40 million to which Mr. Enuaraq was referring is not within the department's budget. I think the resources that are being provided to the colleges, both east and west, are being utilized as efficiently as possible to provide as much of the training as possible across the North.

The difficulty we face, given the reduction in financial targets this year, is that both colleges, east and west, in their base funding, are taking a significant decrease. It presents a challenge to both college boards for them to manage that. I think one of the results will be that both boards will be extremely aggressive in seeking out third-party funding.

The Member will probably be aware that there has been a change, for instance, in how Pathways funding is being channelled from the federal government to aboriginal groups this year. I would say the college would certainly welcome a creative partnership with an aboriginal group in the West to put a program together to offer management training where it is most needed. I would hope that we could see some of those partnerships develop. The colleges are prepared to work with any agency that has funds to purchase training. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the present time, the Department of Education, through Arctic College, does administer a management program, don't they?

Mr. Chairman, I'm not absolutely positive that the western college does offer that program. I believe they do, but I would have to quickly whip through a fair-sized book in order to ascertain for sure that it is offered. I don't have a calendar for the college in front of me at the moment to check it out and advise the Member.

While you're looking for the answer, the point I'm trying to make is that I'd like to get some assurance from the Minister that there will be serious consideration given to affirmative action candidates and the shortage of aboriginal managers that we have within this government and in other areas. We should seriously consider that we also have the opportunity that is presently being offered to the East for division; and, being able to meet the goal of 50 per cent Inuit within the government bureaucracy by 1999. That we also have the same opportunity in the West to meet the goals that the previous government has tried to accomplish with dismal results. We should somehow keep considering this as a priority and that we do make an attempt to have affirmative action candidates. When it comes to aboriginal people in the West, they should have the opportunity to become managers within this government; not just be service people but also look at the management end. When it comes to a deputy minister and the senior level of the bureaucracy, that we do have a percentage of aboriginal people within those levels of government.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Having found an Aurora College calendar, I can now confirm that in the West we offer three management studies courses: management studies; the community administration certificate course; and, the first two years of a bachelor of administration program.

On the Member's question with regard to training, each department is responsible for ensuring that it lives up to this government's commitment to affirmative action. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment provides training for departments of this government, usually through Arctic College. We would certainly be willing, if departments are prepared to provide the seat purchase to ensure that the training is done through the colleges, as the Member suggests. The difficulty we have is that ... I shouldn't say the difficulty we have ... Let me rephrase that, Mr. Chairman. At the moment, the Member is referring to a $40 million training commitment made by the federal government for Nunavut. At this point in time, I don't know how that $40 million is going to be spent. All of it may be funnelled through the colleges or none of it may be. At this point in time, we are hoping that we will come to an agreement with the partners and that it will be funnelled through the college. We believe that is the way to have the greatest number of people trained.

We don't have a similar pot of money offered to the West, at this point in time. It becomes problematic for me to ... I can't commit, whether it's East or West, that the college is going to provide the training. We are hopeful in the East that we will be able to take advantage of those funds. In the West, at the present time, we don't even have an offer of similar funds so I don't even have anybody with whom to negotiate to try and get the money into the system for training. I recognize the Member's concern and I think that, given the funds, we will do the job do the best of our ability. The problem is one of getting a commitment for the funds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You touched on the issue of departments having funds in their budgets for training individuals. The problem I have with that is that we go through a process of interviewing people and then hiring people with high potential, especially from southern Canada, who have gone to universities. It seems like a lot of money is spent in the area of educating these people after we have hired them with, supposedly, experience to do these jobs. It seems like a lot of resources are spent on training individuals -- a lot of whom come from southern Canada to fill these positions with this government -- we're having to pay them a large wage and on top of that, train them. Sometimes it boggles my mind. Who are these training programs for? The managers or the individuals that work underneath them? I've heard from several of my constituents, who work within the bureaucracy of this government, who have a real concern about that; that they do not have the opportunity, as aboriginals, yet, a lot of these dollars are spent on training southern-hired individuals who acquire a job with the Government of the Northwest Territories because of their so called high qualifications earned at southern institutions. However, when they come to northern Canada, we have to educate them because of where we live and how these programs are delivered.

We should seriously look at how that program is being administered by those departments and figure out if we are getting the best bang for our buck when it comes to the Department of Education; and who is really benefiting from these programs. My view is that we should seriously look at where those dollars can be best spent and who exactly the long-term benefit is for: an individual or the Northwest Territories? A lot of these individuals may not live here for the rest of their lives. But for aboriginal people, where do we go? This is home. This is where we will probably live and die. That's something that has to be considered with regard to how you deliver these programs, especially in the management area.

(Microphone turned off) ... they do have statistics with regard to who these departments have sent to these management programs and exactly how many of these people are senior people within the bureaucracy versus the people who are trying to work their way up the ladder to eventually manage these programs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated, it's not the choice of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment who is selected for training by each department. That is something that each department is responsible for. Education, Culture and Employment only delivers the course. It's not up to me, as the Minister, to say that so and so should get the course or so and so shouldn't get the course. The colleges just provide the course to the people for whom it is requested by the departments. It might be interesting for the Member, though, to know that in one course that's offered, the management training program -- which is a public service career training program and a full-time trainee program -- we have gone from, in 1990-91, 96 per cent of the participants being aboriginal trainees to, in 1995-96, 100 per cent of the students being aboriginal trainees. These are already government employees who are being provided with training in order to assist them, usually, to achieve management or officer positions within the government.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the Member was asking about support for people who are training to become teachers. I guess I would say that the support we provide to all students, whether they're learning to be social workers or teachers or any other occupation, is the same standard of support according to our program standards.

The Member referred to us using Alberta standards. Again, I'm not sure, but I suspect the Member is asking about using the Alberta curriculum. One of the things we do use, especially in high school, is the Alberta grade 12 departmental exams in order to provide some indication of comparability in terms of how our students are doing. Being a very small jurisdiction, it would be very expensive for us to set up our own system for exams.

I guess I should point out that, in recognition of the fact that we do have significantly different cultures in the Northwest Territories, the department has developed an Inuktitut curriculum, called Inuuqatigiit, which is available for K to 9 right now, and is being developed for all the way through to grade 12. That should be available all across Nunavut fairly soon.

I believe the Member asked whether or not we could provide assistance to people who wanted to become teachers who do not have grade 12. In fact, most of our teacher education programs do have an access year before the actual teacher education program. So we do have access programs available to help people upgrade their skills so they are prepared to get into a teacher education program. Those are all the questions I remember, Mr. Chairman.