Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the most part, I’m happy with what I’m seeing in Education, Culture and Employment, but there are a couple of things that I think are missing. One of the things I think is missing falls into this particular area.

We continue to pay incredibly high rates to have the Aurora College in Yellowknife with respect to rent and whatnot at Northern United Place. There has been talk in the community, as well as other places, about the possibility of having our own Yellowknife Campus, our own stand-alone campus, rather than continue to rent at incredibly high rates at Northern United Place, but I haven’t seen anything in the capital plan. I haven’t seen anything in the longer-term capital plan. I’m wondering why we continue to leave out the possibility of constructing a stand-alone Yellowknife Campus, similar to the ones that exist both in Fort Smith and Inuvik who have their own stand-alone campuses, as opposed to renting space from others. Are we going to at some point see some work towards a Yellowknife Campus?

Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand that there is a facility plan being undertaken by Education, Culture and Employment for the city of Yellowknife. Thank you.

Thank you for that. I’m happy to hear that. I am curious, what kind of timeline until we can start seeing some progress on that planning. When are we going to get an update as Regular Members as to what the future plan is and what is a timeline for establishing a Yellowknife Campus? When does our lease expire with the Northern United Place and when can we start working towards our own campus? Thank you.

The lease expires in 2012. The facility plan is slated to be completed by spring 2010. Thank you.

I’d like to thank the Minister for that and I look forward to seeing the plan and having further discussions with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and the Minister of Finance. Thank you.

Thank you. Next on the list I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I see that we’re investing into three community learning centres and I’m really very pleased to see them, because they’re there for some of our smaller communities and we should definitely invest in infrastructure of that type. Can the Minister tell me what type of funding was used to accomplish this? Thank you.

Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We accessed the federal program,

the Knowledge Infrastructure Program, a two-year program as part of the Economic Action Plan and we made use of the resources. A list of potential projects was provided to the federal government that we believed qualified, and the three that were chosen were those three that are before us today. Thank you.

I’d like to thank the Minister for that answer. I’ve done some research on the Knowledge Infrastructure Program and some of the parameters are, of course, education, one is museums and another one is library.

For a couple years now I’ve been trying to get some resolution around the Fort Simpson library that’s now reduced to a resource centre. So I’ve been pressing government on this matter to...It requires some capital investment in order to return our library back up to full operating service.

Fort Simpson is a service centre to about 3,200 people in the region. We’re a central district. We’ve got students that have to go to Fort Simpson for education. Having a library is paramount to the community. So this program, I believe, would have fit with investment in Fort Simpson and I’d like to ask the Minister why wasn’t Fort Simpson considered for capital investment from the KIP program? Thank you.

My

understanding of that Knowledge Infrastructure Program was that it was targeted for post-secondary institutions across Canada. I can point out, as well, sometime during the month of October this year Public Works and Services is supposed to be arranging for a structural engineer to go look at the existing infrastructures at both Thomas Simpson and Bompas elementary schools to see what may be possible in terms of accommodating a library structure there. Thank you.

Next on the list I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The questions I have are similar to Mr. Menicoche in terms of the community learning centres. I want ask the Minister if there is the thought, when they do look at future learning centres, that the settlement of Colville Lake would be a place where they would have a learning centre in that community of its own standing building?

Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Colville Lake was not on the list that was submitted to the federal government to access this particular Knowledge Infrastructure Program. Thank you.

From reading the list, I take it Colville Lake wasn’t on the list, but I guess what I’m asking is that when they look at the needs

assessments for learning centres for the size of Colville Lake, the needs of that community that see in the future a capital needs assessment for building a new learning centre. Would Colville Lake be considered as a priority to establish a learning centre there?

Deputy Minister of Education, Mr. Daniels.

Thank you. I’m certainly pleased to hear that it will be looked at. I hope you go further than just having it being looked at in terms of actual construction, if it’s the will of the House to proceed further with this here. But, certainly, I’m happy to hear this here.

Mr. Chair, I’ve also asked if somewhere in some discussion in the future in terms of regional campuses, I know right now we have three and just here Mr. Glen Abernethy talked about setting up a campus here in Yellowknife. I know it’s been a longstanding wish of the Sahtu people to have a regional campus in that region. As Members go to Inuvik, they go to the Yellowknife Campus and they also go to the Fort Smith campus, they certainly would see a benefit for having a regional campus in that region. They know that the learning centres can only do so much in our communities and it’s going to be something that the region can work with the department to look at if there’s any possibility of having a regional campus in our region. It’ s been talked about many times; however, we haven’t moved very far in terms of this type of discussion with the region in terms of having a Sahtu tech in our region. Could I ask the Minister if that’s something that he could entertain with the leadership there?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The question has been deferred to the Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, certainly, those are the areas that we can have an ongoing dialogue, whether it be the Sahtu leadership and DEAs and DECs as well. So we’ll continue to have those discussions.

The campus in Yellowknife has been brought up several times, so those are discussions that we’re having under the review that we’re currently conducting. So those types of discussions will certainly take place. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. I guess it just goes to the point that if we had a regional campus in the Sahtu in terms of our students there, you would see a lot of them staying in the Sahtu

rather than going to the other locations. We will certainly let you further pursue this strongly with the Minister in terms of actually having some fruitful discussions in terms of what possibilities are there.

Like any other large infrastructure, it certainly requires a lot of dollars, so we need to have that discussion, get it on the table. Maybe within a couple years we can have some further discussions, but I think it needs to happen now, it needs to start, because certainly we’re going to start putting more dollars into other campuses and we are not going to get very far. So I just wanted to make those comments to the Minister in that sense in terms of moving forward on this issue for a regional campus in the Sahtu.

Minister of Finance.