Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a few comments and questions that I wanted to add to the debate this afternoon with ECE and I think I’ll start off with following up on my colleague Mr. Abernethy’s questions.
I’ve been here for six years and every year we go through the capital budget it’s the same thing, we ask about Aurora College in Yellowknife and when exactly we’re going to get a stand-alone campus. That college is now a degree granting institution with the four-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing and it’s stuck in a high-rise building in inadequate space. From my understanding, I believe we need to be looking long-term and we need to be looking at a stand-alone campus and eventually even a university, a degree granting institution here. Whether it ends up in Yellowknife, that’s open for debate, but if we’re going to build a campus here, obviously this would be the first choice.
Every year it’s the same, you know, we’re in a lease, we’re this, there’s a planning study, we’re looking at it and nobody seems to want to take it on. That lease expires in 2012 and I would want to ensure that the government is doing everything in its power to try to earmark some capital dollars. There’s going to be a requirement for some serious capital dollars here to build a campus and get out of that lease that we’re currently in. It’s inadequate space. I think we could offer more programs and more services to the residents of the Northwest Territories if we had a stand-alone facility.
So I want to, I guess, start off by asking the Minister if the department is serious about...I know he talked
about a planning study, but is it going to end up in the capital plan sometime in the near future, hopefully before 2012 when we’ll have to consider a new lease at that time? Thank you.