Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to conclude my point, am I to understand that we do not have a general comprehensive territorial policy that looks at the number of students in the Territories who need special education? Am I to understand that it is on a case-by-case basis, and when there is a need found, that special list will be sent in there to wherever the school is and they will be examined? Is there more of a proactive assessment procedure where a class or a school could be assessed at the beginning of the year and at some set time to see what the condition of the needs are? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We did do the student needs survey which was very comprehensive, and we did release that to the Members. It indicated the needs that were identified. As well, some of the districts do their own surveys in this area. We are going to be providing the technical reports back to the particular boards and that will give the boards an opportunity to address some of the areas of concern that are out there, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that the special needs assessment report identified a number of needs for students, but that was a one-time, one-event kind of study. There is no ongoing periodic and systematic general kind of assessment territorial-wide at the beginning of the school year or something, just to get a clear picture of what we are dealing with in terms of students with special needs? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct. We do not have an ongoing program in that area. It is certainly something that I could discuss with the chairs of the district education councils to see if there is an opportunity to feed the information that they do -- because I know on a school board basis, quite often surveys are done on their particular part as well. Rather than duplicate, I think we could look at it in terms of dealing with the individual boards on this matter.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. With that, we will take a 15-minute break. I have Mr. Braden, Mr. Miltenberger and Mr. Bell on my list. We will break for 15 minutes.

-- Break

I will call the committee back to order. Next on my list is Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some questions in the area of education and culture. I am including pages nine through 18 in the information contained. The area that I take some interest in is the area of the arts and culture and the priority and the investment that the government makes in this area, which is very minimal.

Looking at the numbers that are presented here, Mr. Chairman, they have been very minimal and very consistent for the past three years. There are four areas I am looking at specifically. I look at cultural projects, northern performers on page 9-17, then on 9-18 is the Northwest Territories Arts Council and cultural organizations. Those activities probably fairly closely would delve into what I would call the arts.

Mr. Chairman, we are putting about half a million dollars a year into these areas. That is what we have been putting in for the last two years as well. I am not going to argue here tonight, Mr. Chairman, that we should be injecting a whole bunch of new money into this area in the coming budget.

What I do want to search out is the department's policy stand on developing the arts and just where can we go to give this a foundation, Mr. Chairman. We are really missing the boat on supporting a lot of people and a lot of areas with creativity, with aspects of quality of life and quality of living and things we can do to develop up here that really help tell a story and make this place a home. The arts are important. What are we doing in the area of policy? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is no doubt that the funding in the arts area has limitations and certainly they are not big amounts of money. I think it is an important area that needs to be addressed. Because of that, there has been a commitment to update the strategic plan to develop a community-oriented arts policy, Mr. Chairman. That is being done in conjunction with the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development as well as Canadian Heritage.

The purpose of updating that policy is to develop some history and to look at what our next steps can be in the whole of addressing arts in the Northwest Territories. As we know, we have a number of areas that we do fund. We fund some cultural organizations. We fund performing arts, as well through the Arts Council. We have a small budget there that the Arts Council funds. So we are interested in pursuing the arts policy itself and updating that for the Northwest Territories, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, for the investments we do make in cultural organizations, arts councils, performers, what kind of measurements or performance indicators does the department have to tell us how many people are getting involved? How many workshops are staged? What kind of business activities or venues do these things spin off? What kind of partnership investment might be attracted because of this investment? Again, I am looking for areas where we can set targets or have some benchmarks and then measure our success and the value that we are getting for the investment. What areas can the department tell me about there? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Minister of Education, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amount of accountability at the moment is limited to financial reports and some activity reports. It is an area of concern to us and that is an area that we are addressing as a gap in the whole area of arts development in the Northwest Territories. It is one area of the arts policy that we want to address, along with looking at the opportunity of how to access funding from Canadian Heritage. Can we do that and how do we do that?

Just on the policy itself, the redrafting, we are looking at concluding that within this next fiscal year, not this fiscal, but the upcoming fiscal year. So that will start having more concentrated, effective arts programs in the Territory.

Mr. Braden.

Good news. Also seeing that RWED is involved in there, I am assuming they will be participating and that there will and should be a business focus to that kind of thing. I have been a believer for a long time in festivals and events. That kind of thing can really be a source revenue as well as culture. Canadian Heritage is in there. In framing up this policy review, to what extent are you involving some of the arts community, the NGOs? Do you have a consultation list going? What process will there be for public input into this policy? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I mentioned, it is not anticipated that we will conclude it that quickly. It is in the next fiscal year that we look to concluding this.

It gives us the opportunity to develop some of the parameters of areas that we need to look at, some of the gaps and some of the history that has been there and some of the areas that we want to go to. Once we have a framework for that and some of the details to fit into that framework, we can go out to the various organizations. We have a multitude of them in the Territories.

We have some of the aboriginal cultural organizations like the Dene Cultural Institute, for example. In Yellowknife here, we have a group that is extremely interested in arts. They have developed a framework policy themselves to address some of the areas of concern for the arts. We want to take that into consideration and then develop them, then go out to the organizations and the public and lay before them an approach on how to proceed from there, and what some of the policies should be in the arts area. Thank you.

Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the meantime then, can the Minister advise whether all the money that is going into these areas is being spent? Are there any lapsed dollars showing up here anywhere? I guess what I want to do is make sure that for the small investment that we do make into this, it is being used. Is it being spent? Thank you.

The Minister of Education, Mr. Ootes.