Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister's patient explanation there. There is a review underway of the WCB legislation. I would like to ask the Minister if this is an area that will be addressed within the jurisdiction of that review panel. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, yes, the role of the appeals tribunal and the action between the appeals tribunal and the Workers' Compensation Board and its departments is certainly a part of this.

The objective of the review, as we all know, is to have a system that works smoothly, particularly for injured workers, but I think for all parties. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bell.

My question this afternoon is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. It relates to the standardized testing that a couple of the boards in the Northwest Territories have just been through. Mr. Delorey did in fact ask questions on this the other day.

As mentioned, Yellowknife No. 1 did take part in the testing and marks were not quite what we had hoped they would be, but this is the first time we have done these types of tests, Mr. Speaker.

One of the key problems we had was in the area of mathematics. I understand the new curriculum involves word problems and specifically problem solving, which I think may have a literacy component to it that is causing us some problems.

I am wondering if the Minister can tell us what his department is doing to work with the boards to address literacy in this area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the results indicated that students in both the Yellowknife School District No. 1 and the South Slave were not adequate in the math tests. In discussions with some of the officials with the school boards, there were a number of areas that cropped up as possibilities that should be looked at.

Like all tests, they need to be interpreted and properly analyzed. One of the issues, of course, that Mr. Bell has referred to is the fact that the process being used in the questions require a literacy application as well. It was brought to our attention during a meeting with the school board to that end.

What I have done on my part is discussed with my officials at the department what we can do as a department to assist boards that get results and how to interpret the results.

In the early part of the new year, we will be having some training sessions, Mr. Speaker, to assist school boards on how to interpret tests so that maximum use can be made of these particular tests and to ensure that all circumstances of how the tests were taken are taken into account. As Mr. Bell has pointed out, literacy is one area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have a newly minted Northwest Territories Literacy Strategy that the Minister has obviously been very involved in rolling out. I am wondering if that would have some affect on how we do in the standardized tests going forward over the next few years. I wonder if in fact we are going to measure this strategy that we have against these test results. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Mr. Speaker, the Literacy Strategy was directed into certain areas and did not deal with the whole area of providing direct assistance for interpretation of results in the schools. I believe, if I interpreted that correctly, what the Member was asking was will the Literacy Strategy provide some sort of measures of education results in tests? That was not the intent of the Literacy Strategy, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that from talking to educators, one of the problems we have in the Northwest Territories is that parents may not be fully literate or may not have a higher level of education, some of the older generations. Kids do come home with homework and oftentimes we know that results in school are a direct result of their ability to get help at home. I would hope that the Northwest Territories Literacy Strategy will address adult basic education so that parents can certainly help their children in those areas. I am wondering if the Minister could speak to that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Literacy Strategy is quite expansive and it deals with a number of areas. I believe we put substantially more money into adult basic education and literacy. We have combined the area where we had Community Skills for Work, some funding there and the Literacy Strategy delivery through the college system and through the NGOs.

Of course, the intent is to provide more literacy education on the local level so that parents and others -- it is not just directed at parents -- but that all the population has the opportunity to improve their literacy skills. That in turn, no doubt, will assist such people as the honourable Member has mentioned in assisting their children in addressing issues at school, be it math or in other subjects. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Final supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly I can recognize that the results of the Northwest Territories Literacy Strategy may be very hard, in fact, to quantify. I think that is understandable. I wonder if the Minister has any suggestions as to how we are going to measure the effectiveness of this new money that he has put into the system. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

If I recall correctly, I cannot remember the details of the measures we have put into place but we did put into place, with the Literacy Strategy, areas that we wanted to measure results, Mr. Speaker. The Literacy Strategy itself has an accountability framework with it that measures results and has targets with it.

Speaking back to the tests, I think that is of importance to us as well. School boards, more and more -- some have the Canadian Achievement Test and some use the Alberta test. I think that is an area that we want to ensure we coordinate as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. I just want to remind Members that I still have a list of names, so be speedy with your questions. The question is directed to the Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board Secretariat, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department has, along with all the other departments in the government, looked at the whole issue of how do we meet our capital needs with our very limited capital budget? They put forward a proposal which basically said, "Let us rank all our capital projects according to priority, starting with people's lives and working our way through a set of priorities." They have done that. Each department has their own consultation process for all their projects. They bring it to the table and then all the projects are prioritized.

As well, I might mention, Mr. Speaker, when looking at small communities and their needs, and also the need for small projects in larger communities, the departments did agree to set aside an amount of money and $8 million is proposed this year for the projects. That is meant to give the communities and the departments flexibility on how to deal with the smaller projects.

However, as we prepare plans for next year, the 2002-03 fiscal year, then I am very happy to have another presentation to Members, explain how it works and if there are concerns, there is still time to make changes. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Krutko.