Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the building isn't kept clean enough, the public health officer will close it. If we don't have a counsellor, the public health officer doesn't close it. So in some respects a custodian is more important than the other.

The formula, Mr. Chairman, reflects what school superintendents have told us they need to see. They are the ones who are involved in helping determine what the formula looks like. The formula is also not a prescription. For instance, in Norman Wells, they chose to have a full-time school counsellor and they had the flexibility to do that. They chose to move that money from some other

place in order to be able to accomplish that. I doubt that you'll find any formula that is perfect, but the formula itself is reviewed by the superintendents and by the department in concert with them every single year and there are changes made to it every year to reflect what comes forward from the superintendents. What you have right now is a compromise based on what we've heard from superintendents from the north of the Territories to the south.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think he said Norman Wells and, if he did, good on them for making what I would describe as the right choice. However, the question is are we forcing them to cut funding in a particular area, be it maintenance or whatever, administration or whatever is required in order to make the right choice? I mean that one position alone could mean a lot to kids that don't go to school or who have home troubles or whatever the case may be. In my own mind, we should have social workers available in all school districts, therefore, we can always help deal with tardiness or lack of attendance or any family problems to ensure that kids have the healthiest opportunities before them so when they come to the learning environment, they're given the best chance that they can. When I consider other areas like healing in counselling, you have $10,000 per community and I think there's a $60 addition, how does that work out for Yellowknife? Yellowknife is one community; we have two school boards; we have multiple schools in our community. How does Yellowknife funding fall into that bracket? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The whole idea behind a formula is to allow flexibility so that different communities can do things differently. When I talk to board chairs they tell me that they like the way it's being done. If the Member is getting it differently from the board chairs here, I'd sure like to hear that from them. In fact, they tell me I've been too prescriptive with the funding and put too many directives and limits on how the money can be spent; they would like more flexibility. Any formula that you come up with is going to be a compromise and it's never going to suit everybody, but what it does right now is it represents the best compromise we can come up with for school districts across the Territories.

In terms of putting a social worker in every school, I agree. In fact, I chaired a committee in 1993 that reported to this Legislative Assembly that every school should have a social worker. I don't disagree with that. But you know what? We've got $170 million that we've got to spend. We think that the formula that we have right now is the best way in which to divide that up among the schools. It allows the flexibility for those schools that see it as being extremely important to put in a social worker, and for other schools to put in a librarian if they see that position is important, as well. People can make those decisions at the local level. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Then I'd like to hear what the 1993 champion of social workers and school has been doing on that project since he's been the Minister for three and a half years, recognizing the importance and that social workers are important in schools. He's had three and a half years to work on this problem. Where have we progressed in the last three years to put a social worker in each school? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have been able to, with the help of this Legislative Assembly, ensure that the funding has been increased to schools so that through the formula they have the wherewithal to do that, particularly when we're putting the money in that we are for inclusive schooling, that does increase the flexibility. As I said, in at least one school district, they found a way to put a full-time social worker in the school.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The problem with all this so-called flexibility is it doesn't look at a base and I think that's where the design of the system starts to fail. I mean the flexibility is where, I think, it needs to be, which is the school. The superintendents and the school boards can all say what they feel is appropriate to teach their kids the minimums as described by our Education Act. However, the fact is, what I believe, and I think a number of people believe, is the fact that schools need to start off with what's considered a minimum. As I described it, they'll obviously need a teacher of some sort, they will need a principal, they will need administration staff, they will need custodial staff. Those are the types of minimums that need to affect every school out there, whether they're in Yellowknife, Hay River, Tuktoyaktuk, Whati, wherever. My concern is we're putting choices on schools that should be using that money to deliver education programs and we're forcing them to make bread and butter decisions about well, my goodness, there's gum on the wall and we better worry about the health inspector as opposed to trying to find a way to get kids in a better social environment and making sure that they're there to learn. We have prescribed money such as inclusive money and I'd like to see us find ways to uncuff the school boards and make sure that all our funding is delivered in the most flexible manner that we enable schools to deliver programs to do the best.

I know the Minister will have a clear cut reply to all of what I've said, but the fact is that until we work to minimums, I think we are hiding behind the formula and saying, well, the formula will never be perfect but at the end of the day, well, that's the best we have to work with. If we want to provide a great learning environment, we will always ensure that each school has the potential of having a phys. ed. teacher, a librarian, et cetera, et cetera. I mean we don't have to go into, the Minister knows the details, but we need to move to that type of direction because if schools don't have the minimums, then we're now forcing them to make choices again. Like you said, a school had to make some type of sacrifice in order to come up with a social worker in their school. Well, shame on the fact that they had to make a choice in the first place. Congratulations to them that they made the right choice.

Mr. Chair, those are the types of things that I'm trying to lean into.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Unfortunately in life there are limits to the amount of dollars that are available. In this Assembly we have about $1 billion that we have to allocate out. We have a number of different priorities that are competing for some of those dollars. If we could go along and say that every school should have a phys. ed. teacher, every school should have a librarian, every school should have a maintenance person, that formula would be very welcome by the smallest communities because they would do extremely well by it. But then if you only give us $170 million with which to work, that would mean then that the larger communities would have to suffer in order to deliver that.

What we have is a compromise that delivers the best possible education across the Territories based on what we're being told by the superintendents in the Northwest Territories and yet keeping some flexibility. If it gets to be so that we say that each school shall have this, then we're likely going to be in a situation where we're not going to be able to say that every school should have a lot of the positions the Member has talked about because we're putting a significant amount of money in this budget for physical activity, but it's not enough money to put one phys. ed. teacher in every school in the Northwest Territories, even spread out over two years what we're putting in. What we're putting in for trades training is not enough to put a shop teacher in every school in the Northwest Territories. It would take way more money than what we're putting in here. That's just the situation where we have to live within the amount of money that we have. What we've got is $170 million and we have a formula that helps us divide that up. Based on the way this government gets its funding, that's about the only way that we can see that we'll equitably distribute the money across the schools in the Northwest Territories.

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

Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Minister for his answers earlier. I would like to continue along the inclusive education money and I'd like to hear how the Minister would like to describe to me on its flexibility, because I've heard from one specific school board in this community how it's very prescribed money and the Minister just touted at length about how proud he was about the flexibility of PTR money. I'd like to hear how he now says prescriptive money in this area is better.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The money is prescriptive within the directive. The directive is fairly flexible. I would be happy to give the Member a copy of the directive so that he's able to see, for instance, we don't say that if you have a student with this kind of problem that you have to do this in order to resolve the situation. We leave that open to the educators to resolve how to address issues in the classroom.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, maybe I will accept the directive first, although I've heard from one of the school boards that they felt that the inclusive ed money is too restrictive not giving the board the ability to proceed as they feel is required. There is a concern about our achievables versus achievables being defined, achievables and outcomes, that is, Mr. Chairman, as opposed to more of a prescribed funding, which I know may be simpler from an accounting point of view to show, well, we spent X amount of dollars on inclusive ed money as opposed to building in achievables into our programming and allowing our regular tests at grade 3, 6, 9 and, of course, our graduation rates to demonstrate that inclusive ed money is being programmed. However, at this time I'll accept that guideline and leave it for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chairman, over the weekend a few of us Members went to Tulita and we were there on a celebration. Mr. Chairman, the speaker there at one of the sessions was a member from the B.C. Aboriginal Society out of the southern part of B.C. I don't think I could pronounce the name right. Anyhow, one of the strong messages was, Mr. Chairman, go to school or get a job. That was his plain message.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister, is responsible for education and employment and culture. The point I guess is, I want to ask the Minister in terms of if there's any type of directions or suggestions and instructions looking at something that's plain, for me, and simple that if you don't go to school, you get a job. You're not working, go to school. This is more for the younger generation. I want to ask the Minister if he's working with his other departments to look at education career counselling. A lot of our students do really well at the beginning of the year and somehow, through some process by their own means, seem to drop out of school or leave school for whatever reason. They make their way through the income support system and live in the communities. Some of them do go back to work. When they leave school, they go to work, I should say. Lately, Mr. Chairman, some of our students who have left school after many years have completed their Grade 12, they've gone back to school. I experienced that at several graduations. I believe the Minister may have some of that type of experience, also. It's really a good feeling when you see students who left at 18 or 19 who are graduating at 25 and 26 or even 30, with children. There's even a parent who graduated with her children. I mean, that's really exciting. That's very good. More power to those students.

I guess the message I wanted to get out is that for the younger students that do not want to, we do not want to see them walking around town and living off the government or living off their parents. There are lots of capable bodies here. So go to school or get a job. I think that's a really good message and I'm not too sure how we can implement something like that. That's something I'm asking and I think I want to ask more in terms of future business plans, future planning, future thinking with the

chairs of the divisional boards and give some thought to this type of message that we are doing some good things and by having this type of message, really we're going to do some good for the students who decide to leave school that it's going to be real tough and they have to get a job. They can't just live off of what we call welfare programs. When I was younger, my mother said that to me when I was going to quit school at 14 years old; she said, you're either going to go to school or you're going to get a job. So I didn't really want to get kicked out of the house and I didn't know how to get a job or where to work or live on my own, so I went back to school. So I think that type of strong message needs to be reinforced and the parents need to step to the plate, also. I know they are and sometimes it's very difficult for them. So it's that type of support that's needed. So I'm advocating for a strong message to our children. You're either going to work or you're going to get an education. It's as simple as that. But I may be wrong on that point there. So I want just to look at that point here, Mr. Chairman. I don't have any other questions. I just want to ask the Minister if he would give some thought to that type of message going across the North. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Dent.