Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Fine, I guess. We've got 104 beds in that facility. I can accept that then there are 52 rooms in the facility, if that's the number that the Minister is giving us. I also accept that we're not going to double up adult students. I think what we want is we want people to be as successful as possible, and privacy probably helps that. So if we have 52 rooms, how many of those rooms are occupied, and how many of those rooms are occupied by students who are not from Fort Smith? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today I understand the units are full, with 55 students in Breynat Hall. In some cases, individuals have been doubled up. There are approximately 14 units that are allocated for female and the rest are allocated for male, and they want to ensure that they don't mingle the two dorms. Thank you.

Thank you. Of those 55 students, how many are from Fort Smith?

Thank you. When we reported in the fall, the information I got was that 12 individuals were from Fort Smith. However, in the end it turned out to be eight individuals, Mr. Chair, and there are eight from Fort Smith in those units now.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Seeing as we're on the topic of Aurora College, I'd like to pursue some questions in that area. I had alluded to the future of this college and so on in my reply to the Budget Address last Friday. I'm just wondering, because as I mentioned there, I'm hearing some information about the fact that the campus in Yellowknife or the college is somewhat taxed, and that they're being asked to do more than what they were funded for. I'm wondering if the department could provide a profile of the three campuses in terms of the students being served there for the last three years, the positions funded for the last three years, and students, staff and the dollars that go with that. I'll start there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we can provide that. It will take us a day or so to get that information together, but we can certainly provide that back to the Member within a couple of days. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The other thing that I was talking about was the desire on the part of lots of people in the community to have a campus for Yellowknife. I'm sorry, I should correct that. We do have a campus there, it's just not an independent, self-contained college campus. The voices that I hear are not from Yellowknife residents only, but the students who go to school there. It has been a long-running issue for the students, because of the lack of housing that Mr. Bell has mentioned, as well as parking. You know, just having enough space to do what's required. I just checked the budget to see what's in store for capital planning, and I don't see anything allocated for the capital plan for Yellowknife Campus in the budget for a long time; not within the 10-year span that we're looking in. The Minister has mentioned that the college board of governors has mentioned this as well, so I'm interested in knowing where the discussions are at this point about the possibility of a self-contained, independent campus for the college in Yellowknife. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, there are some real challenges cropping up with regard to the present facility: more housing, parking is a problem, classroom space in some cases and accessibility for daycare. The college board has informed me that they would like to see the development of a stand-alone campus down the road. That certainly would be desirable, no doubt. We have not allocated any funding to identify that now, because we don't know what we're dealing with in terms of location, we don't know in terms of size and future need. All of that would have to be worked out with the college board, Mr. Chair. There are a lot of unanswered questions as to where location would be, the size and the kind of money that would be required for this. Thank you.

I would be interested in some information from the department in terms of the costing of that. I appreciate the Minister just indicated that this is at a very preliminary stage, maybe it's not even that far. But I would like to see this being discussed and considered by the policy section or whoever does the long-term planning in the department. I would think that the profiles of the students, enrollment rates and money already being spent, the age of the building that it's in now; Northern United Place is not one of the newest buildings in town. I'm sure that it has its own lifespan that you have to consider, as well as the leases that the college will be expected to pay in future. I will be interested in getting some information from the Minister in the not-too-distant future about what the potential and feasibility is. I guess as we continue to have a shortage of space in the campus to provide the programs that the students are looking for, and if it continues to be the case that students cannot afford to go to school in Yellowknife because everything is just too expensive, then we may see students choosing to go south for schooling or to other communities in the North. But I do believe that there are students who want to pursue education here, and that they're not in a position to move anywhere else, or they don't want to; they want to do it in Yellowknife. I'd like to see some information along with the profile that I've asked for from the Minister in that area.

One other thing I want to see is I would like to have Aurora College becoming a university level sometime in the near future. I don't know how a college becomes a university, but I guess it's by practice and by offering more university programs as the time goes on. I realize that the teacher education program is offering university level programs, although it's not until 2004, so the students that are finishing the three-year program this year will have to go south if they want to continue and finish the four-year program.

This may be just a hypothetical question, but I really feel that there is so much happening in the North in terms of political development and cultural development historically, I think that there is a place in the North for scientific research and economic research. The Aurora phenomenon could be something that could be studied in the North. We have lots of mineral development going on with diamonds and everything else that I'm sure is of interest. I remember watching on CBC these scientists from all over the world -- Japan and everywhere from Inuvik -- in Inuvik studying. They were digging...I'm sounding really unscientific, but apparently there's frozen gas deep, deep underneath that is of academic interest to everybody. Politically, whether it's studying of the consensus government or all of the Aboriginal self-governments that are being settled, I just think that the more that I am involved in political life I am beginning to appreciate more and more critical academic thinking about what people are doing. You know, the decisions we are making as political actors, and business leaders and science and so on. I'd love to see a university level academic institution in this part of the world. I don't know, maybe I should ask the Minister. How does a little college become a university? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on the campus question first, which Ms. Lee is very interested in being kept informed and we certainly can do that. Our first step would be to do a program plan, which eventually becomes part of the capital planning process. But we need to, first of all, work with the board and develop a program plan. As I say, that's the first step.

We are offering more and more university degree programs. For instance, with our teacher education program the degree is now granted out of the University of Saskatchewan or elsewhere. We are going to be introducing that as a degree program, and it will be located in Fort Smith. I believe that's at the start of 2004 that we'll start that particular program. We already provide a nursing program in conjunction with the University of Victoria, and a social work program with the University of Regina for degree granting. More and more I think the college is leaning toward providing those particular degrees here in the North. It takes some time to ensure that we're appropriately accredited for granting degrees, and that our degrees are recognized by other universities. It's important for us to pursue it on that basis.

The college, it must be remembered, offers more than just a degree style of programs. They offer certificates and diplomas. So the steps probably would be a university/college type of set-up, which is similar to what's available in British Columbia, where degrees and diplomas and certificates are provided, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the Minister's opening comments he talked about how we've improved funding over the years for our schools. In particular, we're now running at 15 percent of school funding for student support. I would agree with the Minister that over the life of this Assembly we have managed to increase the amount that goes into school supports significantly. I know that the educators that I've talked to told me that this is a very key investment for us to make. In fact, some have told me that they think it's more important than reducing the pupil-teacher ratio. That's because by providing adequate supports in the class, we enable teachers to do more with the class sizes that they may have. So I think right now we can say that we've done a good job for the increases that we've provided in this area to date.

But having said that, we know that we have a lot of kids with challenges in the Northwest Territories. While we haven't got any clinical work that we can point to so you can't prove what the level is, I think that there's a general feeling that the level of challenge faced in the classroom is certainly higher than what is the average found in Canada south of 60. So if we have a higher number of students in need of special support, we need to be able to put a higher proportion in.

I know we get into the issue of comparing apples to apples or comparing apples to oranges perhaps, but when we look at student support rates across Canada, some jurisdictions say that they are putting as much as 24 or 25 percent total funding into student supports. I know that every jurisdiction classifies student support differently, so we can't say that that's the sort of number that we should be aiming for. But obviously, given the level of challenge that our teachers are facing in the classrooms, we need to try to find a way to provide better supports.

All the educators I've talked to agree that inclusive schooling is the right policy. It's the right policy for us to implement but, for it to work, there has to be adequate support for the teachers to make it work in the classroom. So I'm hoping that while we can take a moment here and pat ourselves on the back for increasing student supports to 15 percent, I hope that the Minister will take it as a personal challenge to continue the fight to increase the amount of funding that we can find to put into schools for student support.

Having just given the Minister kudos, I'll launch off on the other side. I have to say that as a Member of the Standing Committee on Social Programs, I've been quite dismayed with the information that we received when it came to the capital this year. It seems like every time we talked about usage of student housing in Fort Smith the numbers changed. We don't seem to be able to get consistent answers. It has never been explained to the committee, or to me personally, what we have to change in the accommodations in Fort Smith to make them pass the fire marshal's concerns, which is to get past those concerns. So saying that because we have the fire marshal's report that says we're going to have to shut it down if we don't do something, for all I know that means that there's a fire door that has the hinges on the wrong side. I would really appreciate having a better understanding of what the requirements are, so that I can have a clear understanding of why we have to spend the money there. It certainly seemed to make a lot of sense to the Members to take a look at...Clearly a preponderance of our college student housing is in Fort Smith. We do have three campuses, and the committee thought that it was time, perhaps, that we looked at broadening that out. Knowing that we're doing a construction project in Inuvik, it seemed that we could probably save some money for mobilization if we could get that project underway more quickly in Inuvik to see more student housing up there. As has been noted by other Members, we certainly need to address student housing in Yellowknife as well.

We have not had the information that leads us to accept what the Minister and the department have told us about the needs in Fort Smith. I'm looking forward to receiving that. I hope the Minister will provide the details of that information, so we can all agree on where the money should be spent and how it should be spent. I would challenge him to say if you have the information, let's lay it on the table. Let's see it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the student funding, there is no doubt that if we can provide more funding for student needs within the classroom, I think that is the way for the future for us to ensure that we continue our investments in that area. There are a lot of challenges in the classroom for teachers, diverse problems. Sometimes it's not the number of students in the class, but the kinds of different situations in the class, the different number of students with challenges. So I agree with the Member, that it's important for us to continue if we have the opportunity to identify additional funding to concentrate on ensuring that we can put money into the students needs support. It is a critical area.

On the capital projects in Fort Smith, we can provide the Member with a technical support document that we have both on the Brown House and the Green House. We can provide whatever information there we can, Mr. Chair, to the Member, in all likelihood within a day or so. I could give him my copy here now if he wishes, but it may be more appropriate for us to get all committee members some copies on this so that they can address it. It's not a report that indicates small changes in these particular buildings. They point out that the facilities are structurally sound, but they must have a lot of rebuilding and replacement of plumbing, electrical and so forth. Thank you.