Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, a few general comments in the area of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Chairman, in the committee's response to the Department of Education, there are a couple of areas of concern I'd like to highlight and raise my concern, along with a number of things from my constituency as well. The first one in the committee's report is a couple of allocation concerns in student housing. Mr. Chairman, it's been something I've pursued for quite a number of years. In fact, from the 13th Assembly when talk of Aurora Campus was being looked at as to what option to go with, whether it would be a renovation of Grollier Hall or a new building with a gym, or just a new building without a gym, and Public Works has done a study on that. Out of the three options, I remember meeting with the board of governors as they went through that report and with the recommendations made at that time.

It was recommended that it wouldn't be feasible to renovate Grollier Hall because I believe the amount was over $9 million, and it would only give a life expectancy to that facility of 20 years. For a couple of million dollars more, I believe it was around $13 million, one of the options without the gym would give the facility a life expectancy of 40 years. So it was suggested that that would be the route to go. I was happy to see that found its way in under the five-year capital plan. Through a number of avenues, P3s being an initiative the government looked at at that time, that was one of the facilities that would be looked at. Unfortunately, the P3 scenario dropped off the map and the Aurora Campus facility found its way back on the capital plan within the government and is proceeding now with an award of the contract.

The only concern I have, Mr. Chairman, is it's proceeding without a student residence and that's quite a concern to me and the community. The community has come together to try to look at options, and work with the department to come up with a method of building the student residence at the same time we are building the actual facility of classrooms in those spaces. But, unfortunately, to date, we have not come up with a way of doing it.

The department's way of looking at it was to renovate the Blueberry Patch or a number of units within the Blueberry Patch, as we call it in Inuvik. That is a row of housing that belongs to Aurora Campus that was shut down because it wasn't economically viable to continue to operate them. Since then, the department has put some money into it, and a private developer has taken over the facility and leased back some of the units to Aurora Campus and rented out the rest of the units to the public at large. I guess we have to accept that the department is looking at it and our fiscal situation, moving ahead to seeing the best we could make of both worlds.

I have become sort of dissatisfied with what's being presented now, as we go through this process of main estimates and review them. Seeing that the department is actually going ahead with renovations to other student facilities across the Northwest Territories and, in fact, in future years are going to replace some of those facilities that are being renovated, leads me to a great concern, seeing that the renovation of the campus has been worked at from the community level, trying to find ways of doing this and being told we couldn't, and then seeing that the department is putting money into renovating other facilities. Mr. Chairman, based on the stats provided to Members, it showed the occupancy rates of the different residences across the North that deal with Aurora Campus and Aurora College, and it just seemed to fit even further that the community of Inuvik should be looked at seriously when it comes to building a residence. I find it very difficult to look at this budget of the department. I know it is doing a lot of good in a lot of areas. But seeing the work of my community and the members in my community, the education bodies in my community, who agreed with this process, having to see we can't move forward in the residence side and then see another residence in the system being renovated and new facilities being put in place in future years, I really have a difficult time with that, Mr. Chairman. I hope that the Minister can come up something that might be acceptable to my constituents as well as the community of educators. It is, again, very difficult to see that happening.

One another area, Mr. Chairman, I have a couple of questions on the teacher education program specifically. We made some changes in the past. If someone goes through the teacher education program they would have five years to proceed to the next level to get their degree. That was changed and many teachers have gone on to do that. One thing I'm hearing is the difficulty that those who have gone on to get their degrees are having in finding positions in our communities. I don't know if it is isolated to just my constituency, but I'm hearing that from a few other Members. We say we need to train Northerners to take those positions. We've increased the requirements. After five years, if they need a degree, they go out and get a degree. Then when they go and apply for a position in the North, they're being told that they can't and we continue to see new teachers coming up from the South. The more teachers the better, but it is an area of concern.

Another area I would like to highlight at this time, Mr. Chairman, is within the different district education councils and district education authorities. I'd like to get some information from the Minister or his staff on who is unionized in the facilities that we have in the Northwest Territories. Where are they unionized? Do all DEAs fall under the same category or are there differences? I will leave my general comments at this time, Mr. Chairman, and hope to hear some responses. Thank you.