Thank you, Madam Chair. The answer is yes, but the only numbers I have with us today, because I thought the ones that would be of importance are those from September 30th because that is the number that the budget is based on.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just changing gears for only a moment, what program do students have? Now, this is sort of on the heels of what I was asking about yesterday when I was concerned about Pathways in the essence of not being able...if a student's only choice is to go into Pathways or it is seen as the most favourable; let's put it that way. Let's not argue why or how they got there, but they are in Pathways and I was concerned about them being able to go to school on a post-secondary level. I would also like to maybe focus the attention, continuing that theme I talked about yesterday, to continue the theme along the lines of adult education; whereas, what if kids don't fit into that group. So what we have here are students that didn't graduate in a couple of mainstream types of programming, you would to graduate and you don't fit into the Pathways Program, and you basically drop out. What do you do if you are an ex-student at that moment and you want to take some adult level training courses? Say you want to go to Aurora College or Mount Royal College. What programming dollars or pots of money do we have that help that person get back in the groove of education and move forward in their life? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. What is a person to do? I wouldn't want to call him a student just for the sake of discussion because they wouldn't be a student at this moment, but what would a student do at the moment of the age of 22? Because the deputy minister said, if you were 19, 20, or 21, you could return to the high school. So what would someone do in the city of Yellowknife who is the ripe age of 22 who wants to enrol in upgrading? Where would they seek funding in order to seek upgrading possibilities by attending some type of educational adult learning upgrading? Where would they seek funding? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If the Member is asking whether or not there is an equivalent to student financial assistance for those people in that age group, the answer is no. The 19, 20, 21 year olds can go back to the school system. Those who are older could still go back if the school system was prepared to take them, knowing that they would get half of the per student amount that we would provide for a student younger than that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Not to belabour the point, but if you are 22 years old, you have a job, you have fallen out of high school for whatever reason, there are no funding opportunities for you. How do we help these people upgrade their skills? I know they can go to income support if they were at that sort of bracket, if they were in the income support bracket. But because maybe they have a job, they don't qualify for income support. I have heard of UCEP funding out there, but there are only a couple of seats for UCEP funding on the federal level, so that would mean that they wouldn't apply for that. If you are 22 years old, relatively working to some degree or not, you don't qualify for income support, you don't qualify for maybe one of the 10 particular federal funding UCEP seats, and you want to get out there and improve your standing in life which you are sort of tied to at that moment. As I see it, the education system may, in essence, fail you.

Because I see my time is up, I will make it very quick. SAIT offers a program on the type of methodology that they use that if they fail you in the sense that their programs have failed you, you can't get a job in the faculty you have studied under and graduated under, they will bring you back and retrain you. What does the education system in the Northwest Territories do when someone has fallen out of the system and the blessed tree of the education system and they have nowhere to go? You are

22. You are working. You can't get funding anywhere, but you need a basic minimum to get into upgrading, but nobody helps support you. So what are you supposed to do? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Hawkins has outlined some of the options that are available, like income support. There is also a program called UCEP, or University College Entrance Preparedness. That is a program that is available to status and Inuvialuit residents of the Northwest Territories. As I have said, somebody could go back to school, but we don't offer a wage replacement program for people who have not been successful at school previously. There may be some alternative programs available through employment insurance for upgrading. Our counsellors could certainly work with residents in order to see if they can find those programs. At this point, we do not have a program that provides wage replacement for people who are looking to upgrade. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. What is the wish of the committee now in terms of general comments or going into detail? Detail?

Thank you. Page 9-7, as we are going to stand down. We are going to defer that page. We are going to go to 9-8, department summary, information item, active positions by region and community allocation. Page 9-10, department summary, information item, revenue summary. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. On the Canada Student Loans Program, this is the pot of money that we use to fund our SFA partly. That amount from the federal government has stayed the same for as long as I know. It is a million dollar pot there. Has there been any movement in the federal government that might make it possible for us to get more money? Is there any room for growth here? What is the Minister doing to get this pot bigger? I don't think that has moved in a very long time. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am advised that there have been some approaches, over the years, to the federal government to see about having this amount adjusted, but the approaches have been rebuffed. I would be quite happy to follow up with the new government and see if we can achieve some changes now that we have a new government in Ottawa. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.

I am beginning to think maybe they should pay somebody to negotiate rather than work on a committee that really has no job to do. Madam Chair, this department didn't get anywhere on the deal on day care. I don't think we got anywhere on the aboriginal funding because we will see later on that aboriginal language funding, we have struck out on that, too. I don't know the details, but the last government had a lot of agenda items on post-secondary education. Unless it was all funnelling through federal programs, I think we need to know more than just saying we tried but didn't get anywhere. What are the reasons? What was our negotiation position? Why can't we get any money that the federal government would have had?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. All the post-secondary programs that the federal government has had in the past few years have been just that, exclusively federal programs. There was no opportunity for us to get into those. They were typically a result of negotiations with the COF, or the Council of the Federation. In terms of the Canada Student Loans Program, we opted out of the program and, in return, the federal government has offered us this million dollars. In fact, under the CFO program, we are probably not spending that million dollars, so we have a very weak argument when it comes time to try and get more of that money from them.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Ms. Lee.