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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a question that is difficult for me to answer. I am not quite positive.

I would like to expand on my earlier answer, if I may. The department, if the budget is approved and the amendment to the budget is approved, may possibly have $650,000 allocated for literacy. Of which, $290,000 will be funnelled through the Aurora College. The remaining amount will be divided amongst the three regions in the North. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to follow up on the questions that were asked by the Member for North Slave, which speaks a lot to what I said in my statement yesterday and discussions I have been having in committee of the whole.

My concern is this, Mr. Speaker. I think there is something wrong when we ask the major companies, like BHP Incorporated or Diavik or whoever, to get into a socio-economic arrangement where they are required to hire our Northerners. There is something wrong with that, if we are not in a position to provide them with a workforce that they could hire.

Obviously, BHP Incorporated is able to find people. They are having to train people that they hire in basic skills. I want to see the government do something so that we avoid this situation for oil and gas. I think the way to do that is to have the information at hand as to what the requirements are, so that we prepare our people.

Can I ask the Minister whether he has a database that shows what the job requirements are for the future and what the department is doing to prepare them for it? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, certainly through the socio-economic agreements that were struck, there was a requirement to have so many employees. Can we supply that labour force? What is that labour force? What level is that labour force at?

The data that we have available at the moment comes from a labour force survey completed last year, I believe, and it looked at education levels. The other survey that we have is the Census from 1996, and it also provides education levels.

At the moment, other than some surveys we have done directed specifically at the oil and gas industry, that is what we have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The oil and gas industry is what is hot right now and maybe diamonds have cooled down a bit, I do not know. It should not, I do not think.

Would the government consider really targeting the stats that they look at? The bureau stats have very useful information. Pulling it together and looking at mainly what we have in terms of population and the educational level and who is workable, who is employable, who is trainable, and who is able and willing. I would suggest that there will not be a lot of people. Then we will have to target the training program so that we address the specific needs of the people and we match them with the jobs that are available.

Would the Minister prepare, in preparation for September, and look at coming up with such data? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will certainly compile the data that is available and it will be from the labour force survey and the Census data. It, no doubt, will have limitations from that perspective. It may not answer all the types of questions. I am probably on the same wavelength as Ms. Lee, that we need to do more work in this area.

It is certainly our hope that if we can obtain funding through the Non-Renewable Resource Strategy, we can take the next step in this whole process, and that is to work on our database for labour force levels and availability and education levels. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister's answer, although I must say that I am very surprised that we do not have this kind of information already when we are going all over the country selling this idea that we are ready for business, but we are not sure if our people are or if we have the infrastructure in place.

May I suggest to the Minister that, while I do believe that the information is available, it should be narrowed. It is about who can work for oil and gas and diamonds, and what they need. May I have the Minister commit that we have very precise information in September about what we are looking at? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minster responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will provide precise information from the information that is available. We cannot enter into surveys to expand upon that. We will gather the information that we have. Just on the basis that we do not have the information, I am not familiar with all the information that is available throughout the government. We must remember one thing, that the paradigm of activity happened about a year ago in the oil and gas industry. It has come upon us very rapidly, without anyone here being a futurist. This is how things happened.

Now we have to try to catch up. It was somewhat the same with the diamond industry, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Final supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. May I ask the Minister to commit that he is not going to wait for commitment on the money from the federal government on the Non-Renewable Resource Development Strategy? May I ask the Minister to commit that this is the kind of information we need now? We need to know what are people are able to do, and what they are ready for. Can I have him commit that, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have approximately 25,000 person years of work overall in the next 20 years. Ms. Lee asked if we would get information together, and are we committed to compiling a human resource inventory.

Yes, it is necessary to do that for us. It is an essential element. We are restricted, at the moment, to be able to do that simply because of the resources required to accomplish that. We are hopeful and we are certainly working extremely hard on ensuring that we get the Non-Renewable Resource Strategy in place for ourselves, so that we can tackle this very important area.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. In the 2000-2001 business plan, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment identifies $500,000 for oil and gas industry training. We have yet to see a strategy developed, and as this funding is to cover our training for oil and gas across the Territories, I do not believe it is enough.

I would like to ask the Minister if he could tell this Assembly whether the Oil and Gas Training Program, envisioned by his department, includes a literacy component? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A part of the thrust of the department is to ensure that we have adult basic education programs in place, and a component of that, of course, is literacy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.