Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. With the budget before us from ECE, I do think that a lot of new initiatives may be premature, but I think they’re good initiatives. I just want to speak specifically on some of the issues impacting my region, my communities.
First and foremost, I know that the department’s working hard on trying to accommodate our teachers and the teacher housing issue. I know that it affects not only this department, but I think they’re working along with Housing and one other department in trying to address this issue. Time and time again, over the last three or four years in one of my communities, particularly Fort Liard, teachers seemingly think that they have accommodations only to show up and find that arrangements have been changed, or else a new issue has come up and the unit’s not available.
For jurisdictions that are looking for new teachers, new professionals, I often, when I’m talking and dealing with people, say, “Well, if the young professionals come north, there are opportunities here.” But our challenge for our professionals now, at least the new ones, is getting accommodations for them and getting that set. I would support anything the government can do in working toward this. I know that in the health field we are taking some special measures for interim accommodations for agency nurses that come up. I don’t see why we cannot do the same for our teaching professionals that come up.
I was in B.C. about six months ago, just before the 2007 elections, and I picked up the paper. They have similar challenges, like I’m sure many northern jurisdictions do. But in northern B.C. what they did was they said that they’re not going to provide accommodations for the teachers, but they’ll provide temporary accommodations. So once
you’re able to do that, I think you’re able to open up a whole different way of seeing things. If we look at that avenue and look at temporary accommodation, that may mean for us to provide the accommodations, of course.
I would urge the government to look at that and start working toward that. It’ll help alleviate them getting, first of all, a foothold in the North, establishing a positive experience. We do want them to stay and make a career in the North. Time and time again, studies have shown that the longer the teacher’s in the community or familiar with the region, they get positive repertoire and a positive learning experience for the students from somebody they know. They gain some level of trust. It shows in the marks and the graduation rates and success rates of all the different classes that are out there. That’s something that I would urge the government to look at.
As well, government has also said the communities have to take the initiative; businesses have to take the initiative. Through Housing they can get a loan and build a house and rent it back to the teachers. But in the small communities, that just doesn’t work. In Fort Liard, we lumped in that, as well, Mr. Chair. It’s just not workable to have one entrepreneur to build one house. For goodness’ sake, even in small communities we’re still approaching probably a minimum of $250,000 or $300,000 for a good two-bedroom house these days. To expect a teacher to pay $1,500 or $2,000 a month is just not doable, if you do it that way, not to mention the utilities and everything else are skyrocketing.
If we’re able to come up with a plan, with a package, for new teachers and they’re coming back…. I know that with Housing, I’ve been working with them to say, “Yeah, we’ve got to do multiplexes, fourplexes, sixplexes.” The reason you do that, of course, is that nowadays it makes sense to share heating and share some of the O&M for buildings. That’s one other way of doing it — to have central heating in those buildings. I believe that’ll bring the costs down, and I think that’s what we should work toward. Many of these teachers are single, or if they’re a couple, they don’t have big families. They’re just a couple starting out, so smaller accommodations and affordable accommodations will work out.
The key thing, once again, is that I would urge the department or government to look at now, and say: “Hey, we’ve got to do our part here. We’ve got to make it a positive experience for when they come, because we do want them to stay, and we want our communities to succeed at education levels.” I believe that we should be working toward that, Mr. Chair.
I think, as well, I’ll just speak a bit about our capital planning. I think in our schools we’ve got 10- or 15-year retrofits. One of my communities, Nahanni
Butte, has been asking about the 15-year retrofit and when theirs is going to be done. When I checked with the department, they said, “Well, Kevin, it’s not on there.” But I believe there’s a reason for having a 15-year capital retrofit, and that’s to extend the life of the building to accommodate any changes in community levels or student levels. I believe that function is worthy, and I just don’t see why it’s not there for one of my smaller communities. At the appropriate time, I’ll be asking about that through the Minister’s office.
It’s not only there, but we’ve got to look at all the other smaller communities as well — at the timing of those reinvestments for the retrofits, especially in Nahanni Butte. I’ve been there, and I’m happy to say it’s one of our growing communities in the North. We were just recently there. Minister Sandy Lee…. We went into the school. She can probably attest to this: it’s kind of cramped and crowded, but they’re making do with what they have, only because that’s all they have. But they’re looking to better accommodate their needs to make a better working environment for the teachers, as well as the students. So that’s got be in the plan.
I’ll ask the Minister again exactly what stage that’s at, because I believe that’s important. With that, Mr. Chair, thank you very much.