Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. While I am glad to see that we are almost in agreement, the fact remains that we may have similar programs, but they are succeeding and we're not. That is all I wanted to explore and say okay, fine, I didn't realize that we had a similar model and I am glad that the Minister pointed that out. But just the same, they are succeeding, we are not. Why? What is the difference here? We are going to have to learn from them, at least have a really good look. We don't have to do anything more than have a good look. If there is something to be learned from it, I'm sure they would be more than willing to share how they are doing things. Perhaps we can dedicate some resources, but we will cross that bridge when we come to that, Mr. Chairman.

The main thing that I would like to point out is that they are succeeding and we're not. I am supportive of us going down and having a look, if that is what it is going to take. The Minister indicated that they are not willing to bring them up, but we should go down, we should see exactly where they are succeeding and we're not.

In the previous discussion here on my first round of comments, the Minister mentioned something to me and something clicked. He said, yes, we are moving our children along and he said that all the teachers are equipped to deal with students in their class who are lagging. But I don't think that is true. For some reason they are not all prepared to do that, and yet we are moving along a group of class with some people that need special needs attention, they need that special attention.

I don't know if it's a huge astronomical cost to have a special needs assistant in each class. I don't know what the inner workings of the department are. The Minister did also indicate that it is a priority of the DECs to indicate how many special needs assistants we need. Do we have any power to say there must be a minimum amount of SNAs, or is it all based on funding or available cash within the budgets of the DEC? The thing that I have been hearing is that definitely special needs assistants are necessary. I don't know how to go about it, without going directly to the DEC and saying look, they are important. I am sure they know that they are very important and they are dedicating as much resources as they can. With that,

Mr. Chairman, perhaps the Minister can comment on those for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I said earlier is teachers are trained to deal with different grade levels in the classroom. It has always been the case that a teacher who's teaching Grade 4 would have some kids who are reading at Grade 3 level and some kids would be at Grade 5 level. It's not unusual to have kids in a Grade 3/4 class reading at a Grade 2 or a Grade 6 level. Again, that's not unusual. It never has been.

What we often hear from teachers in the Northwest Territories is they see more of that in the classroom here than what you might find in classrooms in other jurisdictions. So what would it take to put a special needs assistant in every classroom? I can't tell you. But it would take money. It would take more money than what we are putting into supporting special needs right now. Yes, the decision is entirely with the DECs. They have to choose between classrooms of a certain size and a special needs assistant or perhaps different teachers. So they have to take a look at the number of dollars they get from us and then they make those decisions. It comes back to what Mr. Ramsay was saying earlier. You have different pupil/teacher ratios. So if you are funding at a ratio of 13 to one, they can run a classroom of 20 to 25 students and have special teachers that run programs for computers or that run gym classes only. Instead of having them all as teachers, they may choose to have more special needs assistants, so they could put a special needs assistant in every class. The boards are given that flexibility. So DECs have that flexibility within the funding that we provide them, but they are limited by the amount of funding that we give. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have Mr. Pokiak next on the list. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like more information with regard to the apprenticeship and employment training. I would like to refer to page 9-26. In 2003-04, they had $4.112 million. In 2004-05, they had $4.847 million. In the 2004-05 revised estimates, it was $4.847 million. There is probably about a $735,000 increase from 2003-04 to 2004-05. Is that because of numbers going up in terms of training at that time? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, we don't have with us the detail for the year 2003-04, so I can't answer right now the Member's question. I can promise that we will get the information for the Member by tomorrow, but I can't tell him right now.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would appreciate that for the Members on this side.

Just following that, after the revised main estimates in 2004-05, going from $4.847 million, then in 2005-06, we are at $4.666 million. Is there a reason why there's a decline in that, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Part of that is $84,000 which was an elimination of the wage subsidies to diamond manufacturing employers. This was a program that was in place for some time but was sunsetted. The other is an internal reallocation of salary funding of $94,000. We transferred funding from apprenticeship to fund an existing career development officer position because we were able to get funding for the apprenticeship position through the Labour Market Development Agreement. So we are basically using federal money to fund a position. That's why we have moved our money out.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to career development, adult employment training programs, there was an issue that just recently developed in Fort Simpson, actually it's been ongoing for awhile, which is we have an old facility that they call La Pointe Hall. They call it Deh Cho Hall now. Public Works is looking at decommissioning it and tearing it down. It's huge. There must be 10,000 square feet in that place. Traditionally it's been used as a training facility over the last 10 years for adult education courses. They are looking at tearing it down. I was thinking how are we going to replace that? I don't see how that's going to be done. I wonder if the Minister can comment on that. How do they handle it in other communities and regions in terms of training facilities? I don't know if I am asking him to build us another facility; it's probably not realistic. But what is realistic, Mr. Chairman, is we can get the department to say they need that building and somehow we can save it, perhaps talk about it as a heritage building. It has a good foundation. They were saying it's good for another 100 years, and actually I have to pursue it further. There have been a few reports that claim it's not a very good building, but everybody is begging to differ.

How does the Minister see us using this Deh Cho Hall in Fort Simpson? Are there any other areas they have, unknown to me, where they can help and train our people in Fort Simpson? What do they do in other regions in terms of training? Do they have facilities? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The fire marshal has issued an order that will see the building closed fairly soon, within the next year. So the Member is right; we have to look at new space. There is going to be a meeting on Monday with Public Works and territorial ECE staff to take a look at planning the consultation process to figure out what to do. The issue that we are going to have is going to be that there are some non-government agencies in that space now that wouldn't normally be in government space and that we can't plan to provide government space for in the future. So that is going to be a community challenge. We are going to have to work with the community to see what the options are. As the Member says, it's going to be a challenge.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Minister for that answer. It certainly seems appropriate that department officials had to have some input into this. Of course, the community is going to have some input. I don't know if the Minister is the lead department for this, but at one point the community is going to have to have input because in my constituency meetings, people were saying it's a shame to lose this building. In fact, if it can't be a government office, can we just keep it? Can we maintain it for a training facility, because it's ideal for that kind of stuff? I don't know if it has to be classified as a government building in order to be turned into a vocational centre or regional training centre of some type. I would just like to urge the Minister that we have to bear that in mind. We need community input and there must be some way to save all that space because it's a great place. Simpson is the regional centre. We need that space. I don't know if the Minister can comment on how we can...(inaudible)...use without classifying it as government. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know I have attended a lot of standing committee meetings in that building and held public hearings in that building. It is a great old building, but we are not sure whether a change in ownership would change the fire marshal's position. So we'll have to take a look at it. It could certainly be a part of the process we embark on, on Monday, to take a look at that issue.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. We are on page 9-25, activity summary, advanced education and careers, operations expenditure summary, $41.053 million.

Page 9-27, activity summary, advanced education and careers, grants and contributions, contributions, continued on page 9-28, advanced education and careers, grants and contributions, total contributions, $30.207 million.