Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will echo some of my colleagues. We are talking about putting money into old buildings to protect the assets. Well, we really have to look at these buildings. They are 50 years old. Are we really protecting our assets or are we just putting them through torture? They aren't going to last long. What is the life expectancy once you have put all this money into it? Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to build a brand-new unit and then look at another 50 or 60 years? I see Blueberry Patch was an old army unit and we are throwing good money after bad at it. These buildings are old, are no longer used, nobody wants to use them anymore. Now we are using them and trying to justify throwing money into fixing those. Then on the other hand, we are trying to say that Fort Smith needs the Brown and the Green dormitories renovated; they are also 50 years old. So this government is leaning away from building new and longer life expectancy units, and going to old buildings and throwing a lot of money into old buildings, which are not going to be around too long, even with more upgrades. So we are going in the wrong direction. I would like to say that.
As for the occupancy in Fort Smith, I think the Minister -- I have to watch how I say these things now -- may be wrong in saying it that it was for high school students. It was at one time, in the '70s, '80s and in the late '90s, renovated for Aurora College students and it was renovated to accommodate four students per room. They all had their own units, cooking units and all that. I'm sure there was a lot of money spent in the late '90s for renovation for Breynat Hall. So they can't say they are doing the double up because that was the reason those buildings were renovated, it was to allow multiple occupancy. All the cooking facilities, the living room, was all set up so they could at least share. When they are away from home they could share units and they wouldn't be alone. So this information here is a little bit different from what I saw in the past. I used to be on the Aurora College board and I know that we did approve that, at that time.
As for Inuvik, like the Member for Inuvik said, at one time there was a multiple use building we were going to put up. We were going to put the residence up with the school at the same time. The whole community agreed to that. At that time, the moneys were only at $9 million and then they started going up $10 million and then $13 million and somehow, somewhere, someone made the decision that we are going to start throwing money into old buildings. I don't think that is the right way to go. I think this government has to make a change in how they do things and using DPW to give you direction is the worst thing you can do. You've seen all the cost overrides they've done in just the two and a half, three years we've been here. I wouldn't use them for any decision. If I'm going to have credibility to go on at all, they don't have any. As for now, they are talking about a new campus in Yellowknife. It is a great idea and I went to Fort Smith and I talked to all my students that were there last year and they said that if you can deliver the programs and they had the housing in Yellowknife, they would go there. But why does it have to be in Yellowknife?
Why can't we put the campus in Rae-Edzo? We've got a beautiful facility there we can turn over to adult education and then build them a high school that they want in Rae, so the students don't have to be bussed across the lake all the time. We should be looking at that. You are saying the land is too costly in Yellowknife, there is no land available. Well, Rae-Edzo is open waiting for expansion over there, so maybe that is a thought that maybe this department can look at. I know that they don't really work through me, they deal directly with the Minister. I know some of their plans are to do those things.
One other thing I want to talk about was the ABE. My community is asking for ABE and it is not being delivered there because of a board decision and the Minister. I think they are looking at going back into it, but now we find out that even if they do go back into it there aren't enough teachers to put ABE in there and to accommodate all the students that are enrolling there.
Going back to Mr. McLeod and what he said about criteria or what are priorities, how they decide who gets what, which school gets renovations. If you go to Mildred Hall and look at the school, you don't see any deficiencies when you walk around in there. Where are the deficiencies? It is hard to see and then you try to justify that we need to renovate that one, or we need to build a new school in Yellowknife because Sir John is full or William McDonald is full. But then you've got some schools where their capacity is only 56 percent. Why can't you move the students around to go to those schools so you don't have to spend so much money in one area? Why don't you send those students to Edzo? We've got space over there. We've got a residence over there. We've been sending all our kids to Yellowknife and Fort Smith for over 40 years, maybe it is time to start sending the students over there and deliver the full grant over there.
So there are so many things that could be done here to change and use our money wisely. I think we can educate our people for a long time in good buildings instead of just patching up old buildings which, you never know, could be condemned in three or four years because a beam breaks under the building. The structure could be sound today; it might not be sound in a week. We've got all these tremors happening in the Western Arctic, and almost every year you hear one. In Inuvik the foundation is pretty old there for the Blueberry Patch, maybe it is time to build new; brand new. I think it is time to make a decision here and quit making excuses that we don't agree with you guys anyway. We know they are just excuses. We just want good results and spend the money wisely. We've been throwing money out the window for so long that we just got used to it. These are all my comments. Thank you.