Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment around the SNAP program. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise the House how many young people are involved in the SNAP program this year and if he has the information going back for a couple of years? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, currently there are nine students enrolled in the SNAP apprenticeship program. The program was started in 1996 and since that time a total of 18 students have been enrolled and two students have achieved journey person status. As well, of course, we have the training and occupational certification program and one student is enrolled in that as a tourism counsellor. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given that this program has been in existence now for six or seven years, why has there been almost no growth in the number of students involved in the program?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member spoke earlier about the need to promote this further, and I do not disagree with the Member on that. We need to promote this with industry and with employers. One of the school boards here in Yellowknife has a program called Bridges, and they handle this in a number ways as a promotional program. Certainly there are some hurdles here. One is interest on the part of the students to be able to move into that, and the other is access to employment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my statement I said that we needed to support this program and the Minister just said that he agreed that we need to support this program. What specifically is the Minister going to do in the next year to more adequately promote this program? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been working on not only the issues of all academic approaches, and I spoke earlier about Pathways, the opportunity for students to move into occupations from grade 10 on, and we are exploring that area. I will commit here that we need to ensure that promotion of this program is done throughout the Northwest Territories and I will assure the Member that that is what we will undertake to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated in my Member's statement, the Aurora campus facility is due for replacement and there have been ongoing discussions in the community and with this government as well in trying to ensure that the student residence will be built along with this facility.

Many of the community members, Mr. Speaker, feel that building a new facility without the student residence is in fact giving us less than what we have right now and that is not acceptable.

I would like to know from the Minister, what is he doing to deal with this situation, knowing that this government in 1997 did a study and reported that a number of options were looked at, and the cost of a new facility replacement ranged from $13 million to $16 million? That was back in 1997. I would like to know what the Minister is doing to address the situation of student residences. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the issue of housing we are tackling by renovating and bringing back on stream some row housing that was available in Inuvik. We presently occupy 30 units and we are putting 18 more units in the market, of which ten will be utilized by the college.

The Member though, I believe, is speaking about what we are doing in terms of a residence with the college. We, Mr. Speaker, at the time that I got involved in this, the issue of how to resolve the issue of building the college was to transpose, with the community and capital planning committee, the funding for Samuel Hearne School for the college. That was $9 million, Mr. Speaker, which allowed us to proceed with the college building. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister or the department looking at replacing the student residences at a future date or is their fix going to be using these row houses as has been discussed?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Naturally it is our hope to be able to address the issue of a student residence with the college, but for the moment we had to ensure there was space available for students to be accommodated, both single and family units. We decided that we would proceed with the row housing, Mr. Speaker, and that will certainly serve our purpose for a couple of years, up to ten years no doubt.

However, we are interested in the college, but it is a matter of availability of capital funding and the priority, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has the Minister and his department worked with the community in looking at alternative ways of proceeding with the student residence at the same time as the campus facility? Thank you.

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

Mr. Speaker, no, although we would like to do that if there was some interest on the part of the community for us to sit down and talk about possibilities. My restriction at the moment is that I am a bit restricted on the availability of capital funding and the capital plan, but that does not mean I am not interested at looking at possibilities, Mr. Speaker.

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