Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, the Diamond Jenness School is 33 years old, so if the mid-life assessment has been moved from 20 years to 25 to 35, we're on the outside edge of the new time frame because we're 33 years old. I have women about my age in Hay River telling me that some of the carpets in Diamond Jenness were in there when they went to high school. And I believe it's true. I'm sorry, but when I drive down the streets of Yellowknife and I see the beautiful renovation on Sir John, and I see the beautiful renovation on Mildred Hall, and I see Weledeh...I mean, the nice new upgrade and retrofit that was done on St. Pat's school there. I look at DJ, it's looking pretty tired; pretty worn out,

a 33-year-old school, and we got $250,000 in capital on the books for the foreseeable future.

So I'd like to ask the Minister, when was a facilities functional review done on the Diamond Jenness School in Hay River? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can certainly talk to our colleagues at Public Works and ask if they have another look at that school and advise us as to what the condition is. I'm aware that in 1997 there was two or three million dollars spent on the renovation of the school, and that would probably be some of the more important things structurally, or mechanically. I'm not sure, at this point, what it was. There has been some money spent on it. In Hay River we've done, in the past decade, renos to PA, to Harry Camsell, we built the Ecole Boreale, and we've also built a new college facility in Hay River. So it's not as if education facilities have been ignored in the community. But I'd be happy to ask my colleague from Public Works to ask his staff to have a look at DJ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. That was very observant of the Minister to pick up on those capital projects that did take place in Hay River and for which we're very grateful; and our Ecole Boreale. We just attended the opening not so long ago. It's very beautiful. The PA upgrade retrofit was about an $8 million project and came out looking fairly nice. Harry Camsell hasn't had that much done to it, but it's not that old. The adult learning centre in downtown Hay River does still seem quite functional. However, back to Diamond Jenness. Someone has just reminded me that shag carpet may come back in style sometime soon.

---Laughter

But definitely DJ is looking very retro these days and it's not particularly a design motif that we're interested in. So I would really appreciate if a functional review could be done of the facility and that information could be shared with us, and, hopefully, we'll get DJ back on the capital projects list in a big way in the near future. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said, I will ask my colleague from Public Works to have his department have a look at the building. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Anything further, Mrs. Groenewegen? Before we get to our next general comment, I would just like to draw Members' attention to the gallery. We have with us today nine, actually, I think there's seven at the last count, senior federal officials who are here to observe us today. They're part of the Canada School of Public Service. I'm going to go through their names: Sylvie Du Pont, Roger Ouellette, Therese Roy, Alice Born, Gilles Saindon, Murielle Belliveau, Jean Claude Piedboeuf, Collin Reaney, and Mary Jane Armstrong. I'd just like to welcome you all to our proceedings this afternoon.

---Applause

Thank you, committee. We'll now move to Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We should show them our unique style of government with a minority over there and how we muscle through...

---Applause

...how we muscle through all our objectives. Mr. Chairman, if the Minister of Education could supply me the numbers, referring to Aurora College, that is both Inuvik, Yellowknife and Fort Smith, if you could refer or find some numbers for the last two years only required, the number of students that attended our schools that are from the North and are from the South. In essence, the Northwest Territories students and the anywhere else students. So if the Minister could supply that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd be happy to ask the college to provide us with that number. We don't have it, but we can ask them if they can provide it. My expectation is that there would be very, very few students from the South. I know when I attended the grad in Fort Smith I was approached by one student who said he'd come up from Ontario to take the course there and was very complimentary of the wildlife technology course and said there was nothing like it in southern Canada. But other than that, I've not run into any other students from southern Canada. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, that's really nice to hear. It's probably because we do have the wildlife students to get engaged with. If the Minister could further supply some more detail which is, in essence, a success rate of the two groups. I'm not asking for individual success rates, but I'm looking for the success rates of the southern students coming north to attend our Aurora College in those locations, and as well as general success rates of our northern students who attend those locations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We can ask the college if they can provide that information. I don't know if they track that sort of statistic, but we can ask.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the note of the wildlife course, as Mr. Dent had just mentioned previously, which brings me to my last question, what are we doing to promote Aurora College south of 60 and why do we have so few students, from his very words, that attend our college? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I suspect that it has to do with the budget of the college. Again, I would have to ask the college board because they are the ones who decide how to allocate the monies for promotion. When I met with them just a few weeks ago, I very strongly suggested to them that they should look at promoting more in the North because, you know, I'm aware that the colleges from down south are in our high schools promoting attendance at southern institutions, and I don't think the college is doing as much as it could or should to promote kids from the North attending the college and what it has to offer. So I've encouraged them to increase their recruiting efforts here in the North, but I think that should be our first priority before we start worrying about heading south. That's, you know, we want to make sure we're filling up the space with northern people if at all possible. Thank you.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make a couple quick comments on the opening remarks from the Department of Education. It's good to see that there's probably going to be an increase in the overall education funding, anyway, for community-based distance learning college programs and student financial assistance.

I just wanted to talk a little bit about the income assistance or the income support programs that ECE manages. Just with respect to some of the policy changes that were going to be reviewed and looked at by the Social Programs committee with the Member about eligibility requirements for persons with disabilities and handicapped individuals. I know there's a list of about eight eligibility requirements that were in the application forms for handicapped and disabled peoples in the NWT and, whereas, we did mention at some point in time back in the last session, I believe, that the Alberta income assistance programs had four basic eligibility requirements for handicapped and disabled people to receive income assistance. Has there been any constructive dialogue or any review processes formally conducted over the last year that this has been an issue, I guess over the last two years, with the Standing Committee on Social Programs and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to make any policy changes that would help alleviate some of the inconsistency that handicapped people and people with disabilities have to abide by? Has there been anything constructive done to date?

Mahsi, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There have not been any changes made to the program in the past year. We have a meeting scheduled, I believe on March 29th, with the standing committee to talk about where we are in the review process. As I said earlier to Mr. Braden, the non-government organizations have been involved in this process of reviewing the income security plans that we have in place now and we will be looking, hopefully, to make our changes as part of the next business planning process. So I'm hoping that by June we'll be in a position to propose some changes to the programs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Villeneuve.