Thank you Mr. Chairman. Those are good comments the honourable Member is making. I think we are starting to realize that we do need to look at areas that in some ways we are already addressing. We need to keep vigilant in all of those areas like the PTR, like the students needs and like testing.

The Member is correct. They provide an indication on how we are doing. It is important for us to take that and he is right. Maybe sometimes the news is not good. We try to do what we can. We feel that we are starting to make inroads in areas like infrastructure, like ensuring that we have a northern workforce. We are not there by any means.

However, we are making our efforts in that and we know that performance is an area that we always have to be cognizant of and aware of in order to ensure that our students meet the standards that are expected from parents out there, from the public out there. We will keep pushing, Mr. Chairman, and we will continue to pay attention to wherever we can to improve areas within our means. Thank you.

Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I want to thank the Minister for that response. I think that it is important that we all work together to solve this. I am not interested in unduly criticizing the department or slinging mud or criticizing education in the North. I am a product of the system myself. I know the challenges. I think that we all need to work together to do whatever we can to make sure we are every bit as good and every bit as competitive as regions in the North.

I think that we take a lot of pride in our education system and the professionals that we have in the system. Dedicated folks who are doing this because they care about our kids. I think that it is important that we look into these things even if sometimes they are painful, as the Minister has indicated, and work to meet the challenges. I know that it is even tougher coming from the smaller communities than it would be in a large centre like Yellowknife that finds it much easier to recruit teachers than some of the smaller communities, but we have to keep working. Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Again, the Member is correct. We need to keep working and we need to keep working together on it. It is a system that we feel we have tremendous foundations out there. We have some tremendous educators. I think that I am very proud from my end. Certainly I can state that we believe that our educators are excellent people. In certain areas, they need support because it is stressful out there from time to time, but I think that if we all work together, the program can achieve what we should be doing in comparison, perhaps, with other areas. In some cases, we do compare very well.

There are pockets of problems. The student needs survey certainly indicated some of the critical areas that are out there that are challenging for us. It illustrated for us some of the areas that we will continue to have some challenges in, but where we could concentrate on some of the problems. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. We are on education, culture, page 9-15, operation expenses, total operation expenses, $11,933,000. Agreed?

Education, culture, grants and contributions, grants, $52,000, contributions, $98,350,000. Agreed?

Total grants and contributions, $98,402,000. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We see a fairly large increase here of total dollars going out to the contributions and grants. I believe a lot of that is in the area of educational authority contributions. I believe that has been tied to the contract that was signed. Can the department inform us as to what the actual numbers we see increased?

Excuse me, could we have some order in the House? It is getting a little loud in here and we cannot hear the Member make his point. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question I had, the increase we see here, especially in the area of education authority contributions, can the department inform us as to how many new teachers that will bring to the Northwest Territories schools? Whether it be teachers, special needs assistants, in that area? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister.

Yes, that is correct. It would be in the teacher and the needs assistant specialists. Thank you.

Total grants and contributions, $98,402,000. Agreed?

Information item, active positions. Information item, student loan revolving fund.

Information item, detail, funding allocation, education authorities. Agreed?

Page 9-23, college programs, information item. Agreed?

College funding allocation, information item. Agreed?