This is page numbers 491 - 519 of the Hansard for the 13th Assembly, 7th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was education.

Topics

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Minister. At this time I would like to welcome and recognize the many people who have turned out for this important issue in the public gallery. Also I would like to recognize the students, the teachers, and the parents who are here with us today. Welcome.

--Applause

We are presently under general comments. We are dealing with the department of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Ootes.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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Jake Ootes

Jake Ootes Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to acknowledge the presence of the many people in the gallery today. It is nice to see this kind of turnout for such an important issue. I am probably going to be going over some areas that may have already been covered, Mr. Chairman, in previous comments. But I think it is worthy to make note of that in the record that we produce. Of concern, of course, and what we are really referencing all our material to is the ministerial forum report that was done. It made many recommendations for improvement of the education system, but the reality has become that we do not have the money to put into a number of areas that do need to be addressed. That is a concern, of course, to us as legislators, the Cabinet no doubt, but also everybody in the territory who is involved in the education field or who have children that people want educated. It is an extremely difficult problem, but I would like to touch on four areas of the report and make some general comments in those areas. They pertain to teacher shortage, the pupil/teacher ratio, the resources we have and new programs that the government introduces. Each to me is very relevant and does require dollars in order to have some resolution to the problem.

Let me first deal with the teacher shortage. I do not think that it is any surprise to anybody that we have a teacher shortage because of the conditions that we are facing here in the Northwest Territories but also elsewhere. We are in a situation where teacher competition is very prevalent in the provinces. As a matter of fact, the Ontario Teachers Federation, I believe, was predicting large teacher shortages. They employ quite a number of teachers. Also, the Canadian Teachers Federation was saying one of the big factors facing the education system today was the potential shortage. I understand that recruitment offices have been set up in Ontario and various provinces to recruit teachers, and this is from other countries. The United States, as I understand, is looking to recruit teachers and of course there are some attractions there, so the whole question comes back for us is what can we do here in the Northwest Territories to retain our teachers? I pose it as a rhetorical question, not looking for an answer at this particular moment.

For example, how successful are we at our Teacher Education Program and where are we going with the Teacher Education Program? Is that successful and are we retaining those teachers that we are training or are they also going to the south? In other words, are we paying for a system and not succeeding at retaining those teachers? The teacher shortage area, while I recognize that it is not totally of our making, there are some areas that we have created some problems, I feel for our teachers and it is partially the working conditions that they have been placed under. It is the living conditions in the communities that some of them face. These are all areas that we do have control over and we can do something about. When Mr. Miltenberger said that only 32 of the 44 recommendations are non-monetary or let me reverse that, 32 of the 44 are non-monetary, there may be some truth to that but the 12 that were left as monetary are sort of the key areas. They are the ones that are really affecting our education system out there. So the dollar aspect comes into play and the big question, of course, is what is the government doing about finding those dollars?

I know we talked about this last week and there were some discussion on what recommendations do we have. Well I can keep throwing out recommendations, but I am not sitting in that chair, and I am not sitting over there, I am not the one who is governing. I am here as a MLA and I can throw out the suggestion. We can sit here all day as we did last week and give you people suggestions. But you have to go to work on this. You have to come up with the answers. We have thrown out the suggestions.

Let me deal for a second with the pupil/teacher ratio issue. Mrs. Groenewegen referenced that a little earlier and the pupil/teacher ratio, while the statistics were given to us of 18/1, believe it was, that was only a funding formula to the best of my knowledge. That does not indicate exactly how many students are in a class. It is only a funding formula to the boards. The boards will put forward and say, okay we have this number of students and this number of employees and therefore the government says right, you get this many dollars. In many classes the 18/1 one, well that is thrown out as an average usage, 15/1, 16/1, 17.5/1, 18/1, that is not really true. What is really true is that may be far exceeded beyond those figures in many cases. I know in British Columbia they have already passed legislation, I believe, to limit class sizes. In Alberta a resolution has been adopted to limit class sizes to 22 students and that is for certain grades.

Let me carry on with another area, and that is resources in the classroom and other programs. We seem to take the approach, and I am going to delve into the other area that I was going to speak on, new programs that we come up with, ideas to introduce new programs, but what we do not do is provide the funding for those programs adequately. We seem to say, okay we have this kind of money, so divy it up across the territory and people will have to make do with that. The Grade Extension Program is one example of that, where we said, yes, there was a political push back in 1991, I have some of the debates here on that, and yes, we have grade extensions, but there was never adequate money put into this. Plus there was never an analysis done of the effect of that. I mean, what is the effect of grade extensions to all of the communities? We do need to ask that at some point. How many teachers does it take to operate in all of those communities? How many graduates do we have from those communities? I am not against those communities having grade extensions if they so wish. What I am saying is, how effective are they and if they are not effective, why? Are we not providing the funding for it?

When we talk about resources and I said that last week, that if you are going to introduce a new program, be like a business person, you do not say, well, we are going to expand our business into this area and then not put the dollars into it. I think that is bad management and I think we do that sometimes as this government. We have to take a look at all of our programs. One of the things we need to do is to say, put a halt on new programs and analyze the programs that we have. Make sure that there is top efficiency in all areas. I will limit my comments for the moment to that, Mr. Chairman, to let others have some general comments and then I likely will have some questions. Thank you.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Minister.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make a note, as the Member was talking that yes across Canada and probably North America, there is a teacher shortage, and that retention and training, keeping the teachers that we do have and training our own northern people to be teachers is an issue. The one piece of good news that I have in terms of this year is the teacher turnover is down from 18 percent last year to 12 percent this year which is, for us, a bonus. The issue of TEP, the enrolments are down. The idea, I think, is still a good one. We are looking at trying to go to our fourth year, but once again we have to look at recruiting Northerners to, in fact, apply and take up teaching. What we are finding is that a lot of the TEP graduates have moved on to other kinds of employment. There has been a total of 395 graduates out of TEP between 1969 and 1998. As of last year, 239 graduates were employed in education related professions, classroom teachers, principals, DEC administrators, education consultants, college instructors, etcetera. In addition, 17 of the graduates were employed as preschool teachers and paraprofessionals. Thirty were attending full-time bachelor of education or master of education studies. Fifty-one are employed in areas outside of education. Fifty-eight were retired, deceased or unknown.

The issue of funding that the Member raised is also an important one, but I would like to differ somewhat with the Member that while it is an issue, it is not the only critical issue facing education. To my mind, the issue of the role of the family and the parents working with the child, the relationship of the family and the children with the schools, with the DEAs and the DECs are very critical. Ensuring that you have strong families where you learn your basic values, where you learn who you are, where you are from, where you have your mother and your family reading night time stories to you, where you appreciate the value of education are things that money is not going to solve. I have talked to the people from Hay River, the lady who was very involved, who submitted that survey about that particular issue, and she agreed. I do not think we can lose sight of that fact that, as a government, we have spent billions over the years on a lot of issues. In fact, we have a history of throwing money at things to solve them, that before we had deficit reduction problems, before we had financial problems, we had the luxury of being able to throw money at all sorts of things to solve problems and we created a government that was humungous in size but it did not necessarily solve the problem.

Yes, money is an issue. Yes, the issue of revenues has to pursued vigorously, but there are things we can do as people of the Northwest Territories, as communities, as DEAs and DECs. I would be prepared to discuss that issue with anybody on the value of the family, be it with language, culture, education, what builds a strong society is a strong family. I share the concern for revenues and the need to look at special needs, but I also know that everybody here, anybody that has had the benefit of a strong family upbringing has been able to, for the most part, go on and that is the fundamental building block of our society. To lose sight of that fact would be to do so at our peril. Because money is not going to solve the issue of a strong family.

The PTR is not an attempt to mislead. It is a relatively standard funding approach used across Canada to determine budgets and budget allocations to schools and school boards. The issue of insufficient funds for new programs is a concern, but clearly the issue of grade extensions, in fact, save the government money. They were spending over $8 million dollars a year on the various residences that they had running, Akaitcho Hall, Ookavik in Iqaluit, Grollier Hall, Kivalivik Hall in Rankin Inlet. There have been demonstrable benefits to grade extensions. Our numbers indicate that access has increased prior to grade extensions from below 65 percent to over 90. Grade 10 to 12 participation has increased from 30 percent to above 60 percent. Graduation rates have been climbing in the last few years, about five years behind the increase in participation rates, which is quite reasonable with the lag time for students to work their way through the system. I do not think we can just dismiss out of hand that grade extensions have not worked. Has it been a perfectly flawless exercise? I do not think so. Can it be improved? It probably can.

The issues we have talked about in this House in the past few weeks about the quality of education and the small communities not having the same selection of courses and program choice as large communities, those kinds of issues have been debated. I do not think, as I have indicated, dismiss out of hand grade extensions. Very clearly, in my mind, as I have indicated in this House, there is no going back to the days of large residential schools where the average cost was about $40,000 per student. That is the number I have been given. Yet, yes, there is a place for family oriented smaller programs, but very clearly, the days of the residential school that history has given us are over in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments. Mr. Erasmus.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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Roy Erasmus Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too, would like to acknowledge the many people that have turned out today to show their concern, interest in the education of our youth and not only our youth but also educating adults and I suppose whoever requires it. Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of concerns and I just wanted to indicate some of them before I get into the main thing that I would like to see changed. Mr. Chairman, we all know that we have a high pupil/teacher ratio. We have a lot of special needs children and we do not have an adequate way of financing that. I think a lot of this is reflected in our high social programs. We know that we have the highest alcohol and drug rates, suicide rates, high rates of people incarcerated, on social assistance, the whole works. I think a lot of that stems from the ability of our school boards and school authorities to adequately educate the people within their jurisdictions. When I see us funding training programs which may not necessary be restricted to long-term Northerners, I am a little bit concerned.

When I see our kids and post-secondary schools, children that have been born and raised in the Northwest Territories go out to university and we have seen the tuition rates probably double or maybe even more than that in the recent years and tuition rates have remained the same. A couple of years ago, we had a Student Financial Assistance Committee or forum, whatever it was called, that went around, made a lot of recommendations, and we thought a new plan was going to be put into place for this year and that is not going to happen. We heard just recently from the Minister, he indicated that the teacher turnover had decreased from 18 percent to 12 percent. I am glad to hear that, but at the same time he did not indicate where the pockets may be where there were high turnover rates or was this consistently seen across the territories that it was a 12 percent turnover or did we have some areas where maybe there is a 50 percent turnover and some with only a 2 percent turnover. It would be nice to know that. I know that, in the past, we have heard that we were having a lot of problems, it seemed like anyways, we were hearing just about every week that there were more people having problems because we had done away with the GNWT housing for staff, particularly young teachers coming into a community where they seemed to have be having hard times making ends meet.

Mr. Chairman, we can identify a lot of problems and one of the biggest ones I think is when we moved to the inclusive schooling policy to discontinue special education classes and allow all students to be taught and have their needs met in a regular classroom. This was supposed to mean that students with severe special needs would be provided with additional assistance or the one-on-one care of special needs assistants. Mr. Chairman, this is a noble cause and one I am sure that everyone would agree with. But if you can do this, you have got to have enough money to do it. There are a lot of problems in this area, I believe. A part of it is caused by the fact that we do not have a proper funding mechanism. We do not have a rating system, if you would call it that, for students who may have very severe special needs and who may all be concentrated in the larger communities. I have heard that people move from the smaller communities, to Yellowknife for instance, because they feel that their children are going to be dealt with better and when you do that, that places a special emphasis or it places these schools in a special situation because they are having to spend all kinds of money to deal with students who require one-on-one work. They may need one person to work with one student almost on a full-time basis. That adds to the pupil/teacher ratio situation.

I have noticed that the problem in the past, there were already wide-ranging problems with supporting the students who some may have attended classes regularly, some did not, some were very bright, some were not, some tried hard, some did not. But now, they also have children who may be very low grades. Say you are dealing with a grade 7 class but some of those kids are at a grade 3 level in certain areas. Some are at grade 7, some are at grade 5 and some may actually be over that. We do not have the adequate financing to ensure that there is classroom assistance to deal with all those kids. Say you have one poor teacher who has to try to break up all those kids into different groups or however they deal with them. I understand that each of those children are supposed to have their own learning plan or whatever it is called, and the teacher may be trying to do that but when you have 20 kids in your class and you have to deal with them every day, I imagine it must be pretty hard. I guess the thrust of my general comments, Mr. Chairman, is that I think if we want to do anything, we have to properly address the special needs area. We have to make sure that they are getting adequate funding for this and the funding stays in those areas, and they need to make distinctions to account for the higher cost of educating some very special needs students over other special needs students. Thank you.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Minister.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to make a side comment, if I could, that as my colleagues have recognized the interest of the people of Yellowknife, if that opportunity was open to the people in my constituency or I am sure other constituencies, I am sure there would be almost an equal number in there showing their concern about education. In regards to the comments from my colleague, I will address some of them and wait for the more specific question. The issue of student financial assistance, I do intend to come forward with an option to deal with the funding issue. I did a briefing with the Social Programs Committee a couple of weeks ago on this particular issue, and I do intend to move forward and try to conclude that long outstanding issue. In regards to the teacher turnover, if the Member will bear with me, I will go through the list. The Beaufort-Delta turnover for 1998/1999, according to the numbers we have as of last week is 14 percent, down from 25 percent last year. For the Deh Cho, it is 11 percent, down from 15 percent last year. For the Dogrib Divisional Board, it is 16 percent this year, up two percent from 14 percent last year. The Sahtu is 21 percent this year, down from 49 percent last year. The South Slave is 18 percent this year, up two percent from 16 percent last year. Yellowknife YK 1 is 8 percent this year, down from 11 percent last year. YK 2 is 4 percent, down from 11 percent last year for an average of 18 percent last year and 12 percent this year.

The issue that the Member touched on in regards to teachers mainly in the smaller communities, and that is the issue of housing is an issue not only for teachers but as we are aware, it is an issue for nurses as well. It is one of the items on the social envelope agenda to try to come to grips with that particular issue that affects, as I have indicated, mainly the small communities. The inclusive schooling budget, as the Member clearly pointed out, would be better served if it was considerably larger. Though it has increased, it was initially $1 million in the early 80's and is now $6.5 million today. That is about 15 years ago, so very clearly it is not sufficient. It would be better if there was more, but it is what we have. One of the issues with special needs as well, as the Member indicated, is the need to come up with a definition of what we mean by special needs and possibly a ranking of special needs students so that, in fact, there is a differentiation in terms of needs. I do not believe that is there right now, so that is an issue that we are going to try to address as well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

General comments. Mr. Henry.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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Seamus Henry Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like my colleagues before me, I would also like to acknowledge the numbers of parents, students and teachers who have, over the past, expressed their concerns about how education is going in the

Northwest Territories and the lack of funding in that particular area. I feel very inadequate here, as a politician, trying to sit here and bring a resolution to the concerns that have been brought to me. I know that much of the resolution to the problems in education, the answers are right in the gallery here today and also in the classrooms all over the Northwest Territories. I think it would be very beneficial for the department and Minister to listen intently to what they are saying and also to take account of what the Members of this Legislative Assembly are also telling him because we get that feedback from our constituents. I think it is important, Mr. Chairman, that the public understands the process of how the Department of Education is before the committee today. I think many times we take it for granted because we are reasonably familiar with how we get here that the public may be also.

Mr. Chairman, for the interest of the public, the business plans for each of the departments are presented to committees of the government and Education, Culture and Employment, that department is presented to the social programs and the committee Members on that program are Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Erasmus and Mr. Morin. After the business plans are reviewed by the standing committees, the department takes that information back, prepares a draft budget which again is presented to the committee, Social Programs Committee, that is also reviewed by the committee, recommendations made to the department and hopefully as many of those recommendations are incorporated into the Main Estimates which we deal with in the House today. Another little statistic I think that is worth mentioning, the process by which this department is reviewed is the same as every other department and this committee does not have the ability to transfer monies from one department to another. All we have is the ability to make recommendations or delete funds. We do not have the ability to move funds from one department to another.

Madam Chairperson, we hear much talk and feedback about the high pupil/teacher ratio. I am not so sure that the high pupil/teacher ratio would be a problem in a normal circumstance but I believe in the Northwest Territories we are not dealing with something that is normal or that should be acceptable. I think the high pupil/teacher ratio comes about mainly from the conditions that the teacher finds themselves in when they come to the classroom. I think it has been acknowledged by the department and by teachers across the territories regarding the numbers of learning difficulties that we have, particularly in the area of the problems which have been caused to the children's minds through the misuse of alcohol creating alcohol effect and fetal alcohol syndrome. I think that is probably where the largest problem comes for the teacher in the classroom and I believe that we have to take some of the pressure off the teachers. I think the Department of Education has to take some pressure off the teachers and if that means additional resources, reallocation of resources from within departments, I think that really has to be looked at.

The Minister did mention in his opening comments and I quote, "it is said that every dollar you invest in a child with difficulties there is a future savings of seven dollars". I think we have all realized the accuracy of that statement. The Minister also makes comments that the fact that if we do spend more money we have only so much resources available to the department and we are spending it as best they can. I believe that is an accurate statement on the department and the Minister's predicament. They are doing the best they can. I believe that the department has got to look at some method of dealing with the difficulties that the teachers are finding in the classroom and maybe take some pressure off the teachers by not demanding higher graduation rates. I mean we have to face the fact that not all children that go to school will be successful in completing a grade 12 education. We have to accept that there has been damage that has been done to children, as I mentioned earlier, through the irresponsible use of alcohol that has created situations that the best teaching system will not contribute to making rocket scientists out of some of our students. That is not to say that we can not prepare them the best we can within their capabilities to be functioning adults in each of our communities. So I think the department has got to take some pressure off on the expectations of trying to increase these numbers unrealistically. I think there is also pressure put on the school boards and the teachers in the classroom by parents. Parents' expectations that their child should be able to graduate and in some cases this is not realistic.

The Minister talked earlier about grade extension and I think something that I do not have any statistics on but I would be interested in knowing how many of the students that do go on to further education become professionals, doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers, nurses, how many of those go back to their own community? I suspect those numbers are not large. I believe in this day and age, Madam Chairperson , we have to accept the fact that you go where the work is. The sooner we teach our students that you do have to go to where the work is and that there is a good potential that you may not be employed in your home community. I think that with creating grade extensions in some of the smaller communities, I think you are creating an unrealistic expectation that you will be able to stay there for the rest of your life. I think that was a reasonable expectation years ago but in today's society you have to go to where the jobs are at. I think young people before they are set in their ways have an opportunity, and maybe through education that is one method that can be used to get young people moving out of their community. It does not mean that they can not go back but at least they will have the opportunity before they get too set in their ways that there is a life outside of their own community.

As I said, Madam Chairperson, I think there are many, many areas that the department has to look at reallocation of short dollars that they have. The Minister, as I refer back to it again, said there was a shortage of funds and if we had more money, yes he could put more money into different areas. I think from that statement I would encourage the Minister and the department to priorize and I know that we may well say that it is nice to have money at the grade level, it is nice to have resources and money to do adult education but if you are only doing half a job in one area, I do not think that in the long run you are going to be successful. So I would be encouraging the Minister and his department to look at doing a good job where I believe it is most important, right at the beginning, and we have to ensure that students in school continually get the message repeated on a daily basis if necessary, that you better take advantage of the education that is provided to you today because you may not have that opportunity to get it later on. Madam Chairperson, I recognize that my time has expired but I will have questions of the Minister during the line by line. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Henry. I would suggest that there are still a number of Ordinary Members who would like to speak under the category of general comments so I will let the Minister decide if he wants to respond to each speaker, or if he would just like to run the general comments back to back and make comments at some point. Mr. Minister.

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Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. If it is agreeable with the Chair given the immediacy of the feedback that I would like to give, if it is agreeable I would like to continue to respond Member by Member.

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Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Please go ahead.

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Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, I would just to speak briefly to the comment about the process that my colleague, Mr. Henry, raised. It is unfortunate that this debate is taking place at this late date in the budgeting process where as Mr. Henry indicated we have two choices either to pass or to cut. It is unfortunate that when this process started nine months ago that we did not lock ourselves away to have the discussion where we wanted to take money from, how we wanted to put money into education, and I would like to reference the fact as I did a couple of weeks ago in the House that the combined committee reports from every committee very clearly addressed the issues of their committee, a wrap-up government operations report touches on common issues but no where in there, and I sat on the committee up until recently of the social programs, no where in there is it indicated anywhere in my reading of this document right here of the need to move money, to take money from other sources, other departments so, yes it is an issue.

In fact I recollect last week, for instance, a motion being passed to accelerate Highway 3. I believe it is a $9.0 million project. At the same time we are being asked to look for money for smoking cessation and those kind of programs. All laudable and important priorities but, once again it is a question of balance, and it is taking this debate in regards to finding more money in the short term is unfortunately somewhat late.

In regards to not demanding higher graduation rates, that recognizing that there are a lot of special needs students that may need earlier exit points to other kinds of employment or education, I would say that at this point our graduation rates are still too low. We have to continue to focus on graduation rates. We guesstimate that it could be as high as 30 percent of our children in schools have special needs but that leaves 70 percent that we should be encouraging to graduate and we have not hit that number yet. I would say once again it is an issue of balance, trying to meet the needs and I think we have an obligation to try to meet the needs that are out there, that we do not have the luxury of only wanting to focus on one or two that this is not a case of a type of triage but it is more a case of trying to balance and meet all the priorities and competing needs with the limited dollars that we have.

Do grade extensions create unrealistic expectations of students that they can stay in their communities? It is possible. I agree that the issue of mobility is an issue that we have to reinforce that you will in all probability have to go out to further your education and there is a chance that you may not find employment in your community but we have to make sure that we, in fact, have sufficient numbers of educated Northerners to take the skilled positions that are currently going begging down south. So, yes, it is an issue within communities but it is tied into larger issues. The final comment I would like to make is that I heard a couple of days ago, just to reinforce the issue of the importance of education, a documentary in which they were talking to a number of people from Greenland and they were getting a retrospective after twenty years of home rule and the final comment by one of the Greenland people was after 20 years of home rule and still having to import just about all their skilled labour was education, education is what you have to put your money to if you want an educated northern society that can in fact not only govern itself politically, but can also have the skilled people to fill the positions, the even more critical positions to do the work, to do the jobs. So, once again, I think we all have the same concerns, it is a question of how do we get there? Thank you.

Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. On the list I have for general comments on Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Krutko.

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Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I think that one thing I seem to be missing here is the whole priority of where we are as a government and where we see ourselves going in the future. When we talk about 70 percent of our finances going into the social and health envelope implementing programs and services for this government and yet any bureaucracy, it does not matter if you are Japanese, American, German, whatever, is based on the economics of the country which is based on the strength of the people that are in that country.

When we talk about generating revenues, when we talk about generating jobs, when we talk about finding new entrepreneurs out there to get involved in businesses and trying to be independent from government, from society, from becoming a social burden on society, we talk about education like it is something that is costing us money, but I think we have to turn the focus on exactly what are we doing here and where is the priority of this government. I think you have to consider that statistics have proven that if people are uneducated and do not have the basic skills to manage life on their own or to be independent from government and also be able to be hired because of having an educational background to take on jobs, responsibilities, that we will continue to see statistics where the Minister made some comment if it is costing this government $40,000 a year to house a student in a hostile setting. But you do not look at the other side where it is costing this government $80,000 a year to incarcerate somebody into our jail system. I think we have to look at where is this government spending its money and where the majority of these dollars are being spent. For myself, I feel that we have to put a priority on education and spend the money now because in the future statistics have proven that you either pay for it now or pay for it tenfold, ten years down the road. So we might be spending $1.6 million now and if we continue on the way we are, then in 10 years we will be spending over a billion dollars on education.

If you look at the statistical envelope of this government we are spending large portions of dollars to incarcerate people. People who are now a ward of the state in which by institutionalizing people, getting them into the social system without allowing them to continue on with their education and being able to succeed in life knowing that education is one of the most important aspects of life that we will have to go through and ensuring that those people who go through the education system at the end of the day will be successful and will not be a burden on society. So I think we have to take a look at exactly what has this government done to consider statistics of exactly what it is going to cost this government to continue running the system as it is by shortchanging the education system now and what will the cost to this government be in ten years?

So has the Minister's department considered the implication of the cost to this government for continuing on with the education system as it is going today which, from all responses we get from the government and this department, there is no money. So without the money we are having with regard to the dropout rates, the incarceration rates, the costs involved in health care and the cost for public housing of this government, has this department considered looking at the social and economic statistics in regard to this government, say five or ten years down the road, if we continue on the route we are going?

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The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Miltenberger.

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Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, this government and this assembly has spent the last three and a half years looking at the issue of budgets, deficit reduction, trying to keep our financial house in order and at the same time meet the many needs that are out there with regard to education and social housing, social services, economic development and very clearly we know, having listened to the Finance Minister's Budget Address a week ago, that there are some clear realities out there. If we want to go back, if we continue unchecked even the way we are and just keep spending the money we do have right now without adding more, by next year we are looking at a $60 million shortfall and the year after that we are back to a $150 million deficit. With all the bad news that brings in terms of compound interest and how fast it grows, when we first got here we were told that if we did not deal with the budget issue we would be leaving the people of the Northwest Territories with a financial burden of close to $400 million. We did not do that. We took the steps we had to try and remain financially solvent and I think we have an obligation as stewards to address the education needs but we also have the obligation to look at leaving a strong or as strong as possible financial base, that it is a balance once again.

Education is good, it is essential, but it also has a corollary that you have to look at - education and jobs. We need jobs. We need a strong economy to generate revenue. Once again, we have to balance the needs with the resources available. Very clearly we have very significant social problems as the Member indicated in regard to incarceration, the cost we spend to keep people in jail, the fact that if there was a reliable FAS/FAE test, once again, I would guesstimate that a significant portion of the people currently residing in correctional institutions would probably be, as well, affected by that particular disability. So yes, as a government and as a Legislature we have looked at the projections, the cost, if we do not spend money know we will spend it later but we have to balance that with trying to be able to, in fact, remain financially solvent enough to continue doing business as we now do it and hopefully look for the new revenues that everyone has been talking about in the near future. Thank you.

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Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Krutko.

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David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

I believe the Minister touched on the question of the quality of education, not just education in the sense of the word, but the quality of education that we are providing for our students in the Northwest Territories. I think it is awfully disheartening when you see a student going through K - 12 and when they get to grade 12 they do not have the marks to get themselves into post-secondary education or off to college because they just do not have the marks in regards to the maths or science or the social envelope. We talk about the cost, but what is heartbreaking for me is that I come from a small riding and you see two or three students graduating a year and in the meantime we may have started off with a class size in grade 2 or 3 where you have 29 students and it kind of makes you wonder, where did the other 28 or 25 students go?

What is wrong with the system that we are not producing quality graduates at the end of the day and why is there such a high dropout rate in the Northwest Territories? When I come back to the original question I asked, the social and economic cost to this government, if we do nothing now to put the resources and the dollars into education and improving it, it is not just a question of educating people but it is a question of having the quality of education in our classrooms so that when someone is in the high schools in Fort McPherson, or Aklavik, or Tsiigehtchic, or wherever you want to have them, making sure that they have adequate resources to conduct their classes in regard to having the materials available in those classrooms. Right now there are students who are educating themselves by pulling curriculum together, by going out of their way to find the information in regard to the text or the subject matter they want to deal with, and having to go out of the classroom to try to get the information to get educated in our classrooms. Is that quality of education?

I think the Minister has to realize that you talk about numbers and you talk about the whole question about well we spend all this money here, but at the end of the day have we actually looked at having the resources available in all our classrooms so that we are teaching a curriculum, subject matter right across the board in the Northwest Territories, does not matter what school you are in. That is what I talk about as quality of education, not that one school has a subject they can teach and another school does not. I would look to ask the Minister, has the department considered ensuring that there will be a fundamental principle that it does not matter where you live or where you are being taught, but the subject matter in regard to the program or the subject you want to take in that particular classroom is available anywhere in the Western Territory, than having some students without materials to meet the marks they need to graduate and be successful and know that once they graduate they can continue on to post-secondary education, or university, so that they can improve in the economic society of the west. Thank you.

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Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Miltenberger.

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Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, I recognize the concern of my colleague, but as a government, as a department, when we do look at numbers we do see that the graduation rates are up, that post-secondary attendance is up and that over the last ten years there has been a significant increase in student financial assistance. That is not to say that there are not problems. The issue that my colleague mentioned in regard to the leakage from when you start in grade 1 and you have 20 some students as he indicated, or in my community they graduate out of grade 7 about 60 students a year and we are not graduating 60 grade 12 students every year in grade 12, but that is an issue. Where do they go? Why do they leave? And do they come back into the system five or ten years down the road and take adult education? That is an issue that has not been addressed.

The core subjects, communities with grade extensions are there. Once again my colleague talked about the quality. That is an issue that the department, every DEC and DEA struggles with to ensure that the quality for those courses that are taught is the highest possible. Very clearly, small community school grade extensions do not have the same curriculum that is available to the larger communities, for instance I toured Sir John Franklin a week or so ago and it is under construction. They have automotive courses, they have fine arts courses, multi-media courses and they are all nice courses and it would be nice to have those in every community, but the reality is that they do not. Once again, that is an issue that is predicated on revenue and funding and no matter how you dice it or slice it in terms of these particular issues it always comes back to that particular matter. Thank you.

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Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I have on the list to speak, Mr. Ootes.

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Jake Ootes

Jake Ootes Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I spoke earlier about the issue of grade extensions in the communities and I want to preface my remarks again that I am not against grade extensions in communities but I am interested in knowing what the costs are. Mr. Miltenberger referenced the fact that it is cheaper or it makes no difference, if I recall, to do community education by grade extensions in the communities. I would like to make reference to the Hansard from back in July 2, 199,1 when Mr. Kakfwi was the Minister of Education and this was a subject discussed extensively at that time. The Minister came back with actual costs of grade extension in reply to a return to a question and it was pointed out that in this reference to Cambridge Bay where there were nine students and the total cost to run the program would be $164,000. It would be $50,000 cheaper to do that in Yellowknife. As I say, I am not advocating that we return to that kind of system, but what I would like to know, and Mr. Miltenberger gave me statistics that contradict this. I think these are the kind of issues that we need to tackle as a department. I think you can get real with your statistics. It is okay to say, well you know, this, this and this. I have heard a number of times today where statistics were used and we can sit here on this side and argue the total opposite. That is reality. I say, with grade extensions, it does cost money. As I say, that is fine. If we are all in agreement on that and that is what we want to do, but we do have one community that has been raising some concern about this and has stated they want to look at alternatives to doing higher education or grade extensions other than in their community. If we do not know the costs of this, then, that is where part of our problem is. That is number one.

The second is, today I tabled a letter from a gentleman from Inuvik who wrote to the Minister and commented about the fact that his wife could not get a permanent position. I do not know whether this information is correct or not in this particular letter, but it raises the question, since the person cannot get a permanent job, they are moved in and out of the community from the south to the North in order to fill term positions at some cost of $18,000 to do this. There are apparently two or three other teachers who are in the same position looking at that. That is an extreme expense to fill those particular term positions. Like I say, I cannot verify this, but, if it has some truth to it, then we are spending an awful lot of money to do this type of employment. Those are the kind of issues I think that are here that we have to put before the Minister to say start looking at your department, start looking at some of these programs. It is fine to say, well we cannot find more money, fine, we cannot find more money, but we also need to say then, what are we doing and are we doing it to top efficiency. That is very important. Let me perhaps, we have been rejoined by some of our other colleagues again, to allow them some comments and some questions too.

The other question I have is a general question on the People Our Focus For the Future. This is the Ministers' Forum on Education. Could the Minister tell us here, because we do have an audience that is disappearing rapidly, but, we do have a number of people here who would be quite interested in knowing what are we doing with respect to the forum report? The Minister commented previously that 32 are non-monetary, that leaves 12 that are monetary. Could the Minister perhaps address that issue for us here? Thank you.

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Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. The Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Miltenberger.