Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I actually don't have that information yet. We're still doing some of the regional consultations, so we aren't totally finished. There were some areas that because of weather or other issues we didn't get concluded as quickly with the consultation as expected. So we're not yet at the point where we're analyzing the data.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, in the sense of general comments and the level of income security and the supports that we provide, yes, it's the best in Canada and the best might be a descriptive word. It's certainly one of the, if not the richest in Canada, but that is not necessarily, in my books, a good thing. We, I believe, have set up some dependencies and expectations. We're seeing that now in the debate we're having here right now in the rent scale for social housing. There are many aspects of this that over the years, almost decades in some cases, these programs have become institutionalized and are almost seen as a given, almost a right or obligation of government rather than a decision that's made for the improvement or betterment of some people.

So I am not a fan of bringing in subsidies or supports or assistance unless they can be justified as amply warranted that there are no other options, and, Mr. Chairman, that they are sustainable. I think the old story that we've heard many times in government, various programs or taxes are brought in. The most infamous one, of course, is personal income tax. It was brought in for a short time to help pay for World War I. Well, guess what? We've still got it. I do not like to see these kinds of things brought in and, in fact, there was discussion just recently of some other type of program that might go toward, I think it was homelessness. Again, are we about to introduce or create another dependency that's just going to keep on growing on us? I hope not.

So those are some of my views, Mr. Chairman, on that overall income security area. I really do anticipate some strong and progressive work out of this area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member's comments. We agree and if you'll notice in my opening comments I did say that this would take some time for us to work through. I was only talking about those that we have in the hopper right now. I wasn't talking about all 17 of the programs that the Member was talking about. We have a limited scope that we're dealing with right now and it will be a challenge to rationalize our approach to them, but that's the goal and if we can start with a good policy base, a good understanding, good acceptance of what the underlying policy of all of our programs are, I think we have a good chance of affecting a change that will mean that people understand why we're providing supports, where we provide supports and how to get them. That's important because right now with so many different places to go for them, people get frustrated because they don't know how to access programs, they don't know what they're supposed to be able to get and they don't know what is expected of them when they graduate from a program, for instance.

So I think that we are on the right track. It's going to take some time and I'm going to have to work closely with my colleagues in the House, the standing committees, to make sure we're headed down the right path. But I am committed to doing that, consulting regularly with Members and we're going to use the information that we get through the strategic plan update and once we have our policy in place then we'll start the work on consultations with NGOs and public groups to make sure that we're doing things that we should.

There's one thing I forgot to mention early on. The Member, when he first started his comments, was quite complimentary of the staff and the department. I'd like to thank him very much for that. I would agree that we have a very dedicated and hard-working staff and I appreciate the Member putting that on the record. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. I've got Mr. Hawkins next.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if I can pick up only where I left off just quickly on NACC and our NACC investment. I think the Minister left out a couple areas. Can you emphasize if we are going to commit to make that $30,000 that was additional core funding to top up last year's core funding to $60,000? Is he going to work to commit to make that ongoing core funding? I didn't hear his commitment towards the arts. I had asked him the question if his department was committed to the arts. Essentially that's a yes or no, but I'm sure it will come with more than just yes or no. I didn't hear about the vision about trying to help put more into it. What I said earlier about the $60,000 paying the power bill, I think I was just trying to put it to a size of where that $60,000 goes. The Minister was right saying on the side here that the territorial government does pay the power bill and maybe he should mention from his perspective the whole scope of what we pay in regard to our commitment to NACC, just to qualify the whole numbers together. Essentially, is that going to be core dollars, the $60,000 moving forward? How are we going to work towards increasing that over the long term? His commitment to the arts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In my opening comments I said a strong and vibrant arts sector is integral to the economic, social and cultural wellbeing of the residents of the Northwest Territories. I believe that personally; that's not just the statement that's in my opening comments. I did say that I am committed to working with the department to do what we can to assist NACC in its operation. We have not identified the money at this point. It does not show up in this budget. But we are going to work on it to try and find it and I have made that commitment to NACC as well. So, yes, I am committed to the arts, the department is committed to the arts. We're going to do what we can to follow through on our commitments, both to organizations like NACC and to the Arts Council. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for that clarification. Mr. Chairman, if the Minister could help me in the area, switching gears of course, to Aurora College. Aurora College is our premier education; the highest level that we offer in the Northwest Territories, that is. Right now there is a review going on as someone had pointed out, maybe it was in Mr. Braden's comments, but with that review on it's present location in the building downtown, what is the mandate of that review? The reason I ask that is I personally believe that Aurora College needs to create a vision based on a five or 10-year plan, approximately a 10-year plan that works towards vitalizing the college in such a way as an independent function, it has its own location and we should be working towards that type of mandate, establishing a self-contained college that could work for all students on different levels. So that being said, what is the mandate of that review of its present location? Is it to reorg what's being presently offered there? Is it to review whether it should be there? Is it to review the possibilities of extending the lease and moving towards a new facility within five years? Maybe the Minister could sort of speak to the scope of what are we looking at and reaffirm exactly when we should be able to get the contents from that final report or the results from that review. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The goal is to have that finished by June of 2005. Right now the immediate project is part of the overall review of education facilities in Yellowknife. So what we are trying to develop there is a 10-year plan. I believe that I've sent copies of the draft terms of reference for that review around to all of the Members from Yellowknife and I will send another copy around to make sure everybody has those. Part of that overall review is looking at a 10-year type of situation, but we are also looking at, in terms of the college alone, even a longer term review of where we are going with our campuses. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to receiving that document. Thank you, Mr. Minister. I really believe firmly a stand-alone college could do a lot for us. I also believe our college needs the opportunity to grow and experience new things. That being said, is there

any review before you in your department to look at and give the college the ability to move forward in its mandate to become maybe a mini university or to step up to the level of a full level of a university? Again, emphasizing I really believe a stand-alone institution is best. That's my opinion, although I realize it doesn't happen overnight, but I believe that the decision to go in that direction needs to start happening and that decision and discussion needs to happen almost immediately because these things take years to discuss, plan, evolve and be addressed. That being said, is there any type of evolution process that looks at addressing moving forward our education as it exists into a larger institution? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are already, at the college, offering two degree programs. So we have moved in concert with universities down south to that level in nursing and in teaching. We are exploring opportunities to work with the other two territories in creating a pan-territorial university type of body and the presidents of all three colleges are going to be meeting in April to take that discussion a little bit further.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was an excellent answer. That's the kind of thing I'm looking forward to hearing that that discussion is going on. It's certainly not meant to solve the problem, but it's certainly to look at it and start talking about it.

The last area at this time that I'd like to talk about is a matter I brought up before in this House. I directed my questions to the Premier because it was a commitment made by the last government and the Premier's office. It was a commitment reaffirmed by the Premier in regard to the hiring of our teachers. Our students who enter the TEP program, students that go through the education program and who have been promised opportunities to become employed teachers in the Northwest Territories and it's a significant problem.

The Premier at the time had mentioned that there were incentives, but it has also been alluded that these students are being educated maybe at a lesser level, if there's some stigma that comes with them or whatnot. I really don't know and I would like to hear what the Education Minister is doing to work through this problem from an education point of view, whereas he's reaching out into the regional district education authorities, he's reaching out to the local education authorities and seeing what needs they need in order to, say for example, take serious these new grads and help get our northern students teaching our northern students.

So what is this Minister doing in that regard? Stats aren't necessary at this time, but I think we're all well aware most of them are not being hired and I think it's not a question of was it 10 out of 20 hired or 11 out of 20. The fact is we've got a huge number of these kids that are not being hired and what is this department as a whole, pushing forward the education mandate, doing to assist these regions, district education authorities?

I think it's a real problem out here that the kids are traveling to these schools, putting their hearts and souls into their dreams to teach the children, become these new educators of our future and that being said, they're hitting a stone wall when they get there and say I'm ready to work and no one wants them. I imagine that's quite stressful for them knowing that they've emotionally committed to something, financially committed to something, our government has committed through SFA to help support these kids go through this process and we put a lot dollars, efforts and emotions into this and our kids are not given the chance. So time is running out and I think really I just would like to hear what he's doing to help address this problem. Obviously I won't have time for a follow-up, but that being said I'd like to hear what the Minister is doing to solve this problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have sent a letter to divisional education councils reminding them of this government's commitment and our expectation that they will help us live up to that commitment. I have discussed the issue with the chairs of the divisional education councils and DEAs in Yellowknife and encouraged them to remember that we expect that they will follow through on that.

We support the DECs to hire our grads by providing an incentive. We support the mentoring of recent grads with, again, incentives to assist the boards and their staff in mentoring new teachers, particularly northern teachers. We are continuing to look at ways that we can continue to make sure that we can live up to our commitments. We have written to all of the recent grads asking them personally what they are doing and we're trying to collect that information to verify just how many have been able to work or have been able to find work or have not been able to.

Since we started hearing about the concern, we're trying to follow through on that. I can give you the information that we have right now, which doesn't include what we've gotten back in this most recent round of letters because we gave people a deadline of February 28th, I believe, to respond. So we're hoping that within the next 10 days we will be able to have some specific names ourselves and some information from those names, but we know right now from our information before that comes back is that of the grads from 1991 to 2004 in the Northwest Territories, these are TEP grads, in the teaching year 2004-05 there are 57 teaching in the Northwest Territories. There is one who is a college instructor. There are 18 who are in other college related professions. There are four teaching outside the Northwest Territories. There are 13 who are in full-time university studies, for instance, either completing their B.Ed. or their master's of education after completing the TEP certificate in the North. There are10 who are employed in other fields and there are 15 who are either unemployed, retired, diseased or that we are not aware of, and two who were originally from Nunavut and have gone back to Nunavut. That gives us a total of 120, which accounts for all of the grads during that period of time. We will be able to report more specifically on the last two years, which is where the area of concern is, hopefully within the next 10 days.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move we report progress.

Thank you. There is a motion to report progress. The motion is in order. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

I will rise and report progress.