Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's a very good question and I am glad it's been raised. We have the Yellowknife Catholic school board who is interested in developing this centre. Initially, they asked for the property, Mr. Speaker, and we acceded to providing that property to the board, but with the understanding that they would take the program from there. My initial understanding is they would develop the program from within their resources. I have the extra area of concern, Mr. Speaker, or extra area of benefit in this community. We also have the Sir John Franklin High School where a lot of trades programs are offered. All of these programs though, Mr. Chairman, are done on the basis of board allocation and school allocation to their funding. There is no extra funding, to the best of my knowledge, for those programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's been well publicized that the first $1 million for this project will be committed by the Yellowknife Catholic schools and the remaining $800,000 will be garnered through various partnerships, one being Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to ask the Minister to expand a bit. As there are no financial commitments, what kind of partnership is your department going to be supplying? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do have to emphasize that we haven't indicated that we would provide funding support beyond providing the property for this particular project. To the best of my knowledge, we have not made any commitment financially on this project nor indicated that we would support it because we have, as I said, in this community alone, two schools to provide this training and we don't want to duplicate, for one reason. Our position has always been that the cost of this must be taken out of the allocation provided through the DEC. In future, we are looking at -- as I mentioned the other day to the honourable Member -- different pathways, and we want to be fair throughout the territory if we are ever able to obtain funding to support the industrial arts strategy or program, or whatever you wish to call it, that we wish to pursue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am aware the Minister keeps committing that there is no finances going into this project, but I read with interest in the January 31st edition of the Yellowknifer that the department officials were to travel to Edmonton and then on to Abbottsford, BC, with a contingent from Yellowknife Catholic schools and Skills Canada to tour career and technology facilities in other locations. I assume this trip took place, Mr. Speaker, recently and that the officials were successful in gathering some useful information. Would the Minister please indicate if his department has ever done or would be willing to do an assessment of Hay River as a potential regional trade centre, given the strong manufacturing and private enterprise sector that exists in Hay River? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Final supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again the Minister is stating that there is no financial commitment, yet keeping in mind that the GNWT has already donated the old driver training school to the Yellowknife Catholic school board, surely that's worth something. I would like to get a commitment from the Minister that he would be willing to work with his department and with the Hay River entities to identify a suitable location to promote the trades in Hay River. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said, we are extremely interested. We are moving forward rapidly on our program of alternative programs for our students. We need to do that. It's essential and we would be glad to work with the DEA, DEC, Hay River and South Slave to see what we can do in order to move forward. We don't have a budget for this particular program, but in whatever way we can help out, we are interested. If the DEA is interested, naturally we are there to be supportive of that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.