Thank you, Mr. Dent. Does the committee agree?

Agreed, okay. We will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses in. We will allow them to get set up. Is it the wish of the committee that we take a brief break?

Okay, we will do that.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. On my right I have the deputy minister for the department, Mr. Mark Cleveland, and on my left Mr. Devitt, who is director of management services.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. We will start with general comments on the main estimates for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. General comments. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to offer some general comments on the department and its budget. The first issue I want to speak to is in regard to the Aurora College. I want to state that I believe that it is very important for our society and in jurisdictions like the Territories to have an advanced education institution. I do believe that Aurora College has come a long way, but it does have a lot more potential to fulfill. Especially in light of the training needs and employment needs that we are faced with and will probably continue to be faced with with all the economic opportunities that are before us. I feel that there is a lot more we can do with respect to resourcing Aurora College and especially for me, the Yellowknife Campus.

During the discussions in committee, I was provided with statistical information from the department which shows me that the enrolment of students, the number of students being enrolled in the Yellowknife Campus is quite similar to the number enrolled in the Fort Smith campus. I appreciate that the Thebacha Campus in Fort Smith is the main campus and Yellowknife is the regional campus, but I do believe at a certain point the resources have to be comparable to the demands being placed on a facility. I believe that Yellowknife campus needs a lot more resources than it is being currently provided.

One of the more serious issues for the campus is the fact that it does not have a stand-alone campus and that now it's gotten to a situation where a lot of spaces are outside of the campus because the campus itself cannot sustain the demands that are being placed on it. Another of the more serious situations is the housing issue. I think the Members that are coming into the city are recognizing and living and experiencing firsthand what it's like to deal with the housing shortage and housing demand and high cost of housing in Yellowknife.

What is happening right now is that there's not enough housing for students at Aurora College and certainly they cannot afford to be in the market and rent apartments or anything like that being a full-time student while attending Aurora College. The Aurora College students have taken up, at least by my latest figure, 90 units at Northern United Place, for example. Those are units that would otherwise be available to other people in low-income categories or for seniors. I know there is a huge waiting list for seniors who normally would have gone into housing at Northern United Place and now they are lined up with everybody else and that line-up is not moving at all. Given that they don't have as long a line up at the Aven's Court, the independent living there, the situation is really dire. I think I need to stress this, and this is something I need to work on and I am going to work on and push the Minister and the government to address within the life of this Assembly.

Madam Chair, I am as well aware as anybody else here about the fiscal realities, but I do believe we still have money to operate and we cannot close our books and go home because we are faced with a deficit. It just means that we have to pay closer scrutiny to the money that we are spending and that we are paying close attention to the priorities that are being given to various items that are coming to us.

I also understand that during the discussion of this department's budget we were given lease costs and other expenses that go toward the Aurora College renting the facility at Northern United Place and it is not a small amount. We do spend a lot of money yearly already on these payments and I think there is an opportunity there for the government to not necessarily spend any more money than what it is now spending in that facility for utilities and such and rental costs and really do long-term planning to do a stand-alone campus building in Yellowknife Campus.

So I would like to ask the Minister at the moment what he has done in his time as Minister of ECE to look at this situation and what his plan of action is with respect to this issue. I understand he has, I'm sure, a myriad of issues that he's had to deal with, but I want to get some indication from the Minister if he has addressed his mind to this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, like the Member, am interested in ensuring that we have adequate programming space for all our students in the Northwest Territories, and one of the first things I did after becoming Minister was to take a look at what we had in terms of leases and where we might have opportunities opening up. So I asked the department when the lease would be expiring on Northern United Place and finding out that it was coming up in a few years, directed that they work with the college and Public Works and Services to do an examination of what we should be looking at, whether it makes sense to stay in the same place, whether it makes sense to stay in the same place and do renovations, or whether it makes more sense to look at occupying new space. At the moment there is some work underway. Again, it's a three-way process between the college, Education, Culture and Employment and Public Works and Services to examine the programming that will be provided. Following that final sort of decision, that's being led by the college at the moment, then we'll take a look at space requirements and that part would be led mostly by Public Works and Services. Hopefully we'll then, fairly shortly, have an idea of what the options are for the space.

As the Member has pointed out, there is a significant amount of rent that is being paid for the space. We are currently utilizing space outside what is now known as the campus, because there isn't enough room there for what we're offering and there is going to be some expansion, as Members know, because of the nursing program in the course of the next little while. So we are going to be short of space in our current location, even more short of space, and we are planning to make sure that we are well positioned to use the public dollars that we have to house the college in the best way possible. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can I get an indication as to what the time frame is that he has instructed his staff who is getting information for him? I think the Minister mentioned that there is partnership going on with the college board and such. I'd like to know from the Minister at what point we, as a committee, would expect to see him get back to us as to his findings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can certainly advise the Member that we would be prepared to brief the committee this year. I expect that the programming will be decided and set by later this spring. I would expect then that over the course of the summer that the space requirements can be decided from that and determined. Then by fall we should have some options available for the space that we can present for consideration. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see that I have about nine seconds. I'm prepared to get back on the line-up if there are other Members who want to raise points.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, just with respect to Aurora College and possible increased vocational training opportunities to our youth, especially with all the plans of industry and growth that we'd like to plan for in the future. I'm just wondering if there's appetite within the department to look at alternative training facilities, particularly creating some of those facilities in the Nahendeh riding.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, for the most part there won't be any considerable growth in permanent facilities for the college outside of the three campuses that we have. But the college is certainly anxious to be involved in training and has worked extensively to develop partnerships in the oil and gas industry in particular. We're always looking for ways that the training can be provided in the regions. There's an awful lot of mobile training that is offered and it's offered usually in conjunction with industry and doesn't require the same sort of investment in infrastructure to have a permanent building to put it in. It can be delivered in communities and provided to people close to where they're going to find job opportunities. We find that's a very successful way to deliver that kind of programming. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Menicoche.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank the Minister for that response because that's the type of thing that I'm particularly interested in. It's just with respect to if we're going to identify a priority region, which is happening in this case, in particular with the pipeline training in the oil and gas sector. It's being impacted in the Deh Cho and I'd like to see at least some future direction, some future concentration of our training, particularly in the trades like welding and carpentry, given thought of in our region. I don't know if it's in the particular plans of the department right now, but I sure would like to stress that point right now and ask the Minister if there is some direction given by their department to look at that and head in that direction. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the department is going to be offering through the career centre over the next couple of days, some seminars to make sure that more people in the area are aware of what sorts of opportunities for training are going to be available in the oil and gas field in the next little while. There is very shortly a significant training proposal for federal monies that's going to be made that includes a partnership that is made up of a number of aboriginal groups, including the Deh Cho First Nations, industry and this government to try and make sure that we can expand even further the amount of training that takes place in the regions. This training would be targeted at the Deh Cho and other regions in the Mackenzie where the employment is likely to be targeted.

I'd like to assure the Member that we are, as a government and department, working to make sure that we don't miss any opportunities that we can find to expand our training for northern residents, particularly to make sure that they're ready to take advantage of opportunities in the oil and gas field. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.