Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I intend to make general comments here and highlight the issues I will be raising as we get into detail later on during the budget process.

In going through the Minister's opening remarks and comments, I have highlighted a couple of areas and hope that they will be able to get the detail when the issues come up during the budget process.

One particular area that I wanted to get some detail on is when we talk about the pupil-teacher ratio, there has been much discussion about that over the years. It has been the point of focus during negotiations with the NWTTA. It has been a highlight that has come to the surface on many occasions.

The government has now instituted and agreed to lowering that rate through that negotiation process, which was a very different tactic that has been taken this time around than in previous governments.

The area I would like to get some specifics on, and not tonight -- if they have it available, that would be good, but if not, then I will go through it when we get into detail and request some of the specifics at that time -- but what were the ratios, for example, back in 1971, in 1981? I can recall my classroom sizes. I have talked to a number of people who have been through the school system. The sizes were quite large. I do not know if we have actually changed in that area, if it has become worse or whatever. The thing that might highlight the difficulty of a large class is that you have more special needs.

I have raised this issue on a number of cases; how we deal with special needs instead of going from, for example, as all studies now point to, you have to get to children before they even hit kindergarten. Those are the critical years. Our special needs program in that area seems to go from K-12. That is an area of concern.

I would like to get some of the actual specifics of the information of previous years, if there has been a decline or an increase in the pupil-teacher ratio, because it has been a highlight for quite some years.

Further in the Minister's comments, he speaks to the Literacy Strategy and makes particular reference to enhancing literacy activities across the North. I hope that would be more than just enhance, that we try to make sure they are focused and the outcomes are going to be measurable.

I am going to use an example that has been of some concern. It impacts in the area of the Schools North Apprenticeship Program. Speaking to some educators in the community I represent, there is some 22 percent of our high school students who are going into their programming. I raised this issue with the Social Programs Committee a while back. It is in the general area. I am not sure what the specific course level is called, but it is 16-26-36 course levels. The credits have been reduced because it is seen as the lower level, compared to a 33 or a 30, or applied or non-applied. The terminology changes quite regularly.

If we are going to work in the Schools North Apprenticeship Program to enhance that on the apprenticeship level, but if we have almost a quarter of our high school population -- and I am speaking specifically from the community I represent -- who are entering a course level that will not even see them being able to challenge pre-trades, that really concerns me. It goes to the whole idea of preparing our children for taking on jobs. If they can go through 12 years of school -- and it is no longer called grade 12. The terminology as I understand it now is year 12, because you could be in year 12 and have a grade 6 area in some of the courses you have undertaken -- that really draws concern to the state we are in.

Hopefully, as we are going to put more money into it, we are also going to line our programs up that will see students, when they accomplish a grade level, or when they accomplish years of schooling, that they can indeed challenge at least the basics out there. If we go to apprenticeship level, the pre-trades exam so they can get into first year carpentry, mechanics and those areas.

There is nothing like going through school your young adult life and coming out thinking you have accomplished something and then when you go to get a job in the trades area, your potential employer tells you "Sorry, young man, young lady, you do not cut it."

You have gone through a system that tells you we are going to prepare for you a study. Do this, do that, follow the rules and we will make something of you. At the end of the day, they tell you that you did not make it. You have to go back for another year. You have to go for upgrading, challenge the GED, or something like that a number of years later when you have become very upset with the system, I guess is a kind way of putting it in some cases. We are talking about young men and women who are at a critical point in their lives, where the next stage from grade 12 is into the work environment.

Those areas are where I am talking about linkages and tying them. Hopefully we will see that with the Literacy Strategy that we are not only going to enhance, but we are going to ensure that in fact they are linked to outcomes and we will see some growth there.

I have raised this in the 13th Assembly as well. We spend a lot of money in education. We spend a lot of money from K to 12, and then we go again through the adult upgrading because the first K to 12 system did not work. For some reason, some place in the process, it did not work, so we have young men and women dropping out of school and trying to get into the work environment. They work for a while, but later on in life they realize they need a better education to get the higher paying jobs. They go back to school for a second time, costing this government more dollars.

We really need to ensure that the K to 12 program is working and is adequate to address their needs and not just address the numbers that we are faced with in trying to meet quotas, or trying to show that we are doing the right things.

There is talk in the Minister's opening comments that we are hoping to improve administrative systems and also anticipating reduced spending in the income assistance program area because of our improved economic situation. We all hope that is a fact, that we will see less income support being drawn when the economic times are better.

There is also a negative impact to having more economics happen. Some people will end up, because there is more money available, some families -- and this was highlighted during the training symposium up in the Beaufort Delta -- about some of the impacts that are not seen initially, or planned for initially, when you have a quick increase in your economic activity like a boom. There is a boom and bust cycle. Everybody looks at the positive side of increased dollars, corporate revenue, taxes, and so on.

However, there is a negative side and some families are impacted by that. Hopefully, we are not going to budget and cut down in that area and find out that we are short. That is a concern I would have.

I have examples of housing where initially in Inuvik, everybody was looking at the housing market and increased rents, and people on income support got hit. However, because people were looking for renters who had employment and two-week paydays, income support clients were put on the bottom of the list and negatively impacted in that area.

These are issues that I will be raising in detail as we get through the Education, Culture and Employment budget. I hope that when we go through the detail, the Minister will have some of that information. I do not expect it immediately tonight, but if he does not have it available now, I will be looking for it as we go through the details. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Minister, do you wish to respond to those comments?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I will just quickly reference some of the areas that the honourable Member has made comments upon. I would like to state that we will do our best to get more detailed information on the pupil-teacher ratios as they applied in previous years. It may be difficult to go back to the 1971 era, but certainly we will try and get them as far back as we can. I know that I looked at some statistics the other day and they did date back, I believe, to the 1990 era. We will do our best in order to get those.

The Member has appropriately stated that yes, in previous times, class sizes may have been larger. The change, of course, that is upon us is the recognition that there are a tremendous amount of needs within a classroom, students with special needs, and those are areas that require assistance. Hence the reason for us to address the pupil-teacher ratio, because if we can bring that down, classroom teachers find it more manageable to conduct classes with some efficiency. It does become difficult because of the numbers of students in a class, and especially if the number of students are students who require individual education programs, for example. That raises some concerns.

On the Literacy Strategy and measurable outcomes, the Member also referred to various courses that are in the school system. In the math area, I will perhaps just make reference to that. We do have more than one pathway now. We have approximately four pathways, but the reasons are because of potential dropout of students if we do not offer that opportunity. I understand what the Member is saying, that there can be concerns expressed, can they then go back and upgrade themselves, and will those courses that they have taken be applicable to upgrade? In other words, if they want to go into apprenticeships, will the courses be applicable for that? We feel that the math programs that have been designed, with the exception of one perhaps, gear them to the appropriate ability to upgrade themselves in the future.

Trades is an area, Mr. Chairman, that is becoming extremely important and it should have always been one of importance for us here in the Territories, and should be elsewhere, too, simply because there is a tremendous opportunity out there for our population in that area. It is even on a national basis. There are shortcomings in the trades.

In the income support area, we did experience an opportunity to save funding there, although we did not cut back on the programs. This is happening because of improved employment by individuals. There are more and more individuals receiving employment in the Territories, and it is showing within our program on income support.

Yes, there are definitely side effects to economic development. We are cognizant of that. We are not treating this as a cutback to support for individuals by any means. We are looking at improving the food basket rates for individuals. We have also improved, in the course of it, some funding for the disabled. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just quickly make reference to a number of areas. On the area of culture, I think that we sometimes overlook some of the strategies and the areas of support we do have. I understand the Member's interest and concern in that area, but we cannot overlook some of the concerns that we have as well, but also some of the programs we have in place.

Yesterday Mr. Miltenberger asked me about arts support. I found out later, which I had forgotten about, we are working on an arts policy between RWED and ourselves and the Department of Heritage. Again, that will potentially outline some of the areas of concern.

In terms of the daycare assistance, I spoke on that earlier today. We do have approximately $4 million we will be putting into the Healthy Children's Initiative daycare support programs, and we are looking at the early childhood development program as a potential support area as well, Mr. Chairman.

The SFA, there are two areas there. A policy area and...the policy area was really long established when we changed the legislation and the conditions of applying for SFA were well established. The other is the administrative area. The administrative area merely supports the policy area. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the Member for his comments on a variety of areas. I will quickly touch on some of them. I think one of the areas he dealt with when he dealt with the magnet community issue was some concern of funding levels to support any changes. We do have a mechanism and all of the DECs, as well as the DEAs in Yellowknife, are aware of the possibility of extraordinary funding and the application they can make in that area in the event that they need it.

The area that we are addressing is support for the classrooms through the PTR and the student needs. Mr. Bell also spoke about behaviour problems, and it is an interesting area, an area of great interest to me. We had several teachers in Vancouver a while ago to attend a session in British Columbia on behavioural problems and effective behavioural support. It is an area that some of the DECs and DEAs are already working on and have instituted some programs already.

On the Literacy Strategy, the collaboration between departments did take place, Mr. Chairman, and will continue to take place. A deputy minister's committee and his officials meet on a consistent basis to help develop the Literacy Strategy. We recognize that, because it was one of the areas that was part of the request by a motion that was made to ensure there is government-wide coordination.

The maximizing northern employment, we do intend to look at private sector support and to encourage and to look for opportunity to deal with the private sector, as well to ensure that employment is increased there.

The recruitment and retention issue, on students with interest relief, yes, that is something we are pursuing and we would like to pursue fairly rapidly now. We have been caught up with some other issues, but we have never put that on the back burner. It was just something that we needed to flush out a little more. We will be getting back to the Members on that.

The Aboriginal Languages Strategy, we did give that to the committee some time ago, Mr. Chairman, but we can certainly provide more copies if that is required, Mr. Chairman.

On oil and gas training, I would just like to state yes, Inuvik is humming and buzzing. The Minister of RWED was up on the weekend, but I was there two weeks ago, Mr. Chairman, and you were there yourself, at the time. The next morning I had some meetings with Inuvik officials, with Nellie Cournoyea and Freddie Carmichael, to discuss the whole issue of training, the whole issue of potential up there. Our department is very heavily involved in the whole training aspect there, Mr. Chairman. We have had a training committee operational there for many years already. The lead on that are our officials there. We are well aware and we are very involved in all of the activity there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make some general comments on this Department of Education, Culture and Employment. I feel it is a very important department. This department is charged with preparing our youth and our residents for employment. We heard from the Finance Minister of the number of employment opportunities in the last while in the Territories.

However, the communities I represent still have high rates of unemployment, virtually no training opportunities and there is really no training going on. We have one program now, Women in Trades. They are learning how to do welding. They are taking a two-week course in welding. Other than that, there is really nothing.

There are some safety courses that have gone on, and there is really no opportunity for training, especially in the area of oil and gas. The Deh Cho is an area that has high potential for oil and gas. We have already seen some lands being opened up, oil and gas in the Liard.

I also heard the Aboriginal Affairs Minister announce today the Deh Cho First Nation had signed an interim resource management framework agreement. We are anticipating that we are going to start seeing a lot of oil and gas initiatives in the area really soon.

However, we are not seeing anything in the area of oil and gas training. We have known that oil and gas was going to come down the tubes for many years, yet to datem we have no college program to accommodate oil and gas. There are no college programs for oil and gas training in the North. The only thing we have is driver training and safety courses.

If anybody wants to take courses in the area of oil and gas right now, they have to go to the south. There is no community based training. I was hoping to see additional dollars in this budget committed to oil and gas, but the money committed is the same as last year.

We were told that the oil and gas sector would get the same attention the diamonds were getting. We are not seeing that at all. In fact, there was a mine training committee put in place, but there is no equivalent group for the oil and gas area. There is no oil and gas committee.

The Minister mentioned yesterday in my line of questioning that there is a training group. I believe there is a training group located in Inuvik, but that has no bearing on what we are doing over on this side of the Territories. During question period yesterday, I asked the Minister about how successful he felt the government was in their discussions with the Minister of Indian Affairs. He did not take the time to really answer that. He indicated that they were continuing their discussions. That does not tell us where we are.

I am concerned that we will be missing a lot of opportunity, and we will see a lot of jobs go south because we are not prepared for oil and gas when it starts to come about. I believe that is in the very near future.

Another concern I have is something that has been raised a couple of times now, and that is the maximum allotment for the fuel subsidy for the seniors. I have had a couple of seniors now that, because they are raising the inflated gas prices, their heating fuel subsidy has gone over their maximum allotment. I think that is something we have to take a look at.

Other concerns include some of the programs that are listed in the detail, and I have a concern that a lot of these programs that are listed are very hard to access. For example, we have a group that is traveling to California and will be performing in a number of different places. They are a youth group. They had to raise a lot of money, and they are just about there. They are planning to leave in about a month. They are going to demonstrate hand games and drumming. I see programs here for northern performers, for cultural projects, yet they cannot access any money from this government. I cannot for the life of me understand why an aboriginal group demonstrating cultural activities, and something we all say we promote, cannot draw down from some of these programs.

Another concern I have is regarding high schools. I think Mr. Roland touched on some of the concerns that I have also. That is regarding the quality of education that our students in the North are getting, especially in the smaller communities. Since the introduction to the smaller communities, more specifically Fort Providence, I think it has been four years now that the community has had a grade 12 program. We have not seen one graduate yet. The numbers seem to be dwindling rather than increasing.

When I was in high school, there were 26 of us in grade 12. The community has just about doubled in size, yet I think we have four or five students in the high school. There seems to be a reversal in the trend. Some of those students who are in grade 12 are not satisfied with the level of education they are receiving, and they have taken the option of attending the Northern Leadership Program in Fort Smith. There is a real concern that this option might not be around for much longer. I think that is something we should really revisit.

It has a lot of importance for us in the communities because it gives those students who want to try living in a different environment, want to access the better sports programs, have more opportunity for different academic programs, it gives them that opportunity. Just about all of the students who have attended the Western Arctic Leadership Program are now in university, while we still do not see that kind of success coming from the grade 12 programs in the communities.

I was quite happy to hear mention of FAS over the last little while. We as the Regular Members will be addressing it as part of a theme day. A lot of the communities have started discussing FAS. Myself as an MLA, I am fully aware now. The profile has been raised. I hear it in the communities. I think, judging by the level of discussion, we finally brought this issue out to the public attention. It was not the easiest thing to do. I have heard from my own communities that it is kind of a negative backlash to coming out and say you have a certain level of FAS.

We are trying to approach it in a way so that we are not pointing fingers at anybody. Our schools are really taking an aggressive approach. In fact, we have been trying to secure some funding in the last little while. We have been turned down for funding by the federal government because they considered the proposal too ambitious. However, we are not going to give up. We are planning more workshops and a lot more discussion on this issue.

I am also concerned about the harmonization for housing with income support. The biggest concern is adding the additional costs to the seniors. I realize a lot of these costs are very small and for the most part are not in the smaller communities. However, I believe most of the seniors -- and I have a lot of discussions with the seniors -- are experiencing a lot of hardship. I do not think it really does it any justice to add increasing costs to them. I also do not believe that we should be adding any costs to the students, as this program will start charging a level of rent to students also.

I will be addressing some of these issues during detail, so I will reserve my questions until then. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, the honourable Member spoke about the unemployment rates in the communities he represents and the potential for oil and gas. There has been training taking place. I understand that many of the courses were on an initial basis. This budget includes another $500,000, Mr. Chairman, to address oil and gas training. Yes, perhaps it is not as much as we would like. It is an area that we continue to work on.

We are working, and we continue to work, with the federal government on the human resource development plan to see if we can access funding through that mechanism. That is essential for us, Mr. Chairman, to get substantial money.

Additionally, we are working on the maximizing employment. We are talking to the oil companies. We are suggesting that they too come up with potential suggestions. If there are suggestions from communities and other organizations, we would welcome them because we are interested in seeing what is possible.

With regard to the seniors' fuel subsidy program, as we know for the moment, we do have a program to do rebates to individuals and families on fuel. We are looking at some anomalies in the whole area of seniors' fuel subsidy.

The support for youth groups, our programs in the culture area are limited. As I stated earlier, we are doing a program to study an Arts Policy, and we are working on that with RWED and Heritage Canada to see if we cannot develop some area of improvement there.

The area of high school programs, our enrolments have increased. That is true. Perhaps we need to continue to look at programs. I do not know the specific answer to perhaps the enrolment and graduation rates of Fort Providence. We would have to take a look at that.

With regard to the Western Arctic Leadership Program in Fort Smith, it is a program we are studying at the moment to see, because other funders have pulled out of the project. We want to see if we cannot look at how to approach that.

On the harmonization of income support, we did brief the committee on it. I think we are looking for a report back on that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I could echo many of the comments made by my colleagues here, but a lot of it I could also get into under the program details as we go through the budget. I do have a number of questions arising from the Minister's opening comments, particularly a couple of areas that are not covered anywhere in the budget, so I would like to examine those a bit right now if I could.

In his opening comments, the Minister made reference to the Maximizing Northern Employment Program. Of course, there is nothing in the budget for this program right now. In his opening comments, he says that the commitments will be fully developed by March 31 of this year. Does that mean they will be fully developed and implemented by March 31, or does that mean that the program will be developed by March 31 and ready for discussion with the standing committee before implementation?

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the concerns we have with Maximizing Northern Employment is in the area of students, university students and post-secondary students specifically, because they will be coming on the market fairly shortly. We want to ensure we are prepared for that. Our planning is progressing fairly diligently in that area, Mr. Chairman. We anticipate that by March 31, we will have a lot of our planning out of the way.

I will have to go to Cabinet and then proceed to the Members after that to pass the program as planned, as we finalize it to the Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could I get some understanding from the Minister of when he proposes to meet with the committee to explain the details of the program?

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do need to finalize some of the areas. With regard to the student area, the projects that we are working on there, I do need to go to Cabinet with. The moment I am through Cabinet, then we can appear before the committees and before the Members. At this particular point, I do not know what specific dates I can provide.

Mr. Dent.