Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I fully support the Minister and his comments in terms of getting the children to school and to get them on time, get them fed. They even now have food programs in the schools here, which is sponsored by some good companies to support the initiative of having educated children in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Chairman, the point I guess I would like to point again stresses that some students, as much as we do for them, they, today in life they have it so easy. I'm telling you, we live in a generation of easy living. You walk in the house, you flick the light on; you want water, you turn the tap on; if it's too cold, turn the button and it heats up the house. We don't even have to do anything. We've got a microwave. Instant food. Even got stores now when you're really hungry, you can go to the store and buy food. You don't have to go in the bush and shoot your caribou, and there's lots of caribou according to the Colville Lake people -- I spoke to the chief this afternoon -- lots of fat caribou out there.

So, Mr. Chairman, what I'm getting to is that the students today, the children today, through no fault of their own, live in a generation of almost luxury compared to some of the older people, where they have to work for it, earn it, and be very grateful and very humble. We want to give children a job and they quit school, they want 21 bucks, 22 bucks an hour. You offer them a job as a janitor or a custodial worker working in one of our local stores, he said, ah, 15, 16 bucks is too cheap. They complain. They work for six or seven dollars. Well, that's the choices they make in terms of not going to school. You get a job, and there's lots of jobs in the community. I guess I would agree with the Minister that there are some places that do not have very many jobs. But if they want to work, they can find work. So that's what I'm saying. True enough you get a higher education, you go further in your educational academic lifestyle, you would get a higher pay, more chance of getting work. I believe that and I've seen it work and I agree with the Minister 121 percent. I'm saying that for other messages, that we have find a to I don't know, that's the Minister's staff and his department will look at, I'm just saying, I sure would like to have some discussion later on in the time our session is over and this Assembly is concluded that we give some thought to it. At least give some thought to it. Not right now, but get the process going. That's all I have to say, Mr. Chairman. These children need it and deserve it, and I think we need to give it some thought to help them in the future. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to having a discussion about this with Mr. Yakeleya and other Members. I look forward to whatever advice I can get. Thank you.

Thank you. We're on page 8-17, activity summary, education and culture, operations expenditure summary, $170.160 million.

Page 8-19, activity summary, education and culture, grants and contributions, grants, $52,000. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, I haven't asked any questions yet this afternoon. For the record.

Okay. Mr. Chairman, for, let's see, page 8-19, there's a detail line here about contributions to artists, art organizations and art projects, Mr. Chairman. It shows

that for the last or for the three years running -- last year, this year and next year -- we're budgeting $426,000. I wanted to ask, what is the basis for this and in light of increases in so many other programs why the arts seem to be relatively flat in terms of our contribution levels, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think if you look at all the numbers on this page, you'll notice that they either go flat across the page or they go down across the page. It has been a challenge for us to find ways to increase our funding to third parties. The money the Member is referring to is specifically for the NWT Arts Council. But it has been difficult for us to find inflationary funding for any, across government, third-party funding that we offer. It's been a very big challenge.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, related to this on page 8-18, the previous page, is a line of program delivery detail in the overall area of culture and heritage. In fact, it details that if we take the three current years under review, that each year has shown a reduction from about 3.4 million last year to 3.3 this year and 3.2 next year. Mr. Chairman, this department shares with ITI shared responsibility for the NWT Arts Strategy, yet our funding here is either flat or declining and a quick scan of ITI's budget submission, Mr. Chairman, shows that they don't have anything budgeted for their share of the responsibility for the Arts Strategy. Now, what's going on here? Why is it that not only, as the Minister said, it's been very difficult to find new money, and it's understandable when this government has grown by 700 PYs in the last three years, why is it that we're actually facing a decline in our spending on culture and heritage, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The department had sought one-time funding to put some money into the Canada Winter Games and that's where you're seeing the reduction for the most part in this year. We'd only applied to or were only granted the money for one year and it was for one specific purpose, and that was for the Canada Winter Games. There was another smaller cut to infrastructure contributions for community museums and, again, that was a time-limited program that came to an end. So those are the only cuts. There's been no cuts to grants that are going out to the Arts Council or to organizations.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Braden.

On this page, 8-18, it shows there's been quite a bit of discussion about this already today I think. Schools, what is described as schools, and we have in the last fiscal year $100 million allocated. This year it will be 103. Next year 116, almost $117 million. That's a jump of about 12 percent in a year; 16 percent over two years. I guess I'm wondering if the Minister -- and forgive me if I'm going over ground we've already covered -- could give us a bit of a snapshot of what is it that's going on in this area here that's causing, as we note here, a 16 percent jump over two years? That's quite a steep rate of increase, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Negotiated salary and benefit increases to teachers will account for about $4 million of that. Forced growth and other areas is about $1.2 million. Then, as Members know, there's about $3 million in the pupil/teacher ratio reductions for phys. ed. and trades. So those are the larger numbers in there. Those are the largest categories for the increases.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Braden.

Okay, Mr. Chairman. So the majority of this was forced growth or money that we needed to keep the same system going. I think the Minister said there was about three million and change that will go into reducing the teacher-pupil ratio. So that is where we'll see some real, I guess, impact from this extra spending. Okay. So that's about 25 percent of the increase over two years is going to actually improving something at the classroom level. Okay, Mr. Chairman. I'm done on these two pages then.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. We're on page 8-19, activity summary. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I should make one point; the biggest single item in that number that I forgot to mention to Mr. Braden is the $8.6 million infrastructure contribution to Ecole St. Joseph. That does account for the biggest portion and I had misled him by saying that I outlined the biggest portions of it by talking about other things.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Braden. We are on page 8-8-19, activity summary, education and culture, grants and contributions, grants, $52,000.