Mr. Chairman, this has been in the works for a number of months now. We continue to work closely with PWS as well in this respect. We did consult with the local francophone board and also the local community, and just on a moving-forward basis will be the modular units onto the schools. They have agreed to move forward on that. So we are entering into a contract with a firm. It is in the works. That will certainly capture what is needed in the community of Hay River. Mahsi.

I wonder if I could get a timeline on that. Are we talking next school year as in September of 2009 or sooner than that? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, of course, the plan is in place for next school year, 2009. Mahsi.

I would like to also ask about the plans in terms of expanding the French school in Yellowknife. Where are things with that? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we have met with the school board and the superintendent on numerous occasions. There is also discussion at the federal level through the Heritage Minister, that department. Previous contributions went towards the school as well. We are on phase one, phase two. Those are in the works in the proposal, as has been submitted to the federal government. We continue to work with the federal government on this particular item. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. We are on page 10-17, activity summary, education and culture, operations expenditure summary, $179.023 million.

We are moving along to page 10-18, activity summary, education and culture, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $52,000. Contributions.

We are going on to page 10-19. Mr. Krutko.

On page 10-18, below the $52,000. In regards to the official languages for aboriginal groups, it is $2.9 million, but I think we also have to realize that there are nine language groups. How is that distributed by the different language groups?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Lafferty.

Mr. Chairman, certainly this is a contribution agreement on base-plus. There are various communities that did qualify and will continue to qualify. We can certainly provide the list to the Members. Mahsi.

It will be good to get that. I think it is also looking at the other language group by way of official languages for French is $350,000, but also I know that under that is already language education, second education, French again. Is any of that money being used for aboriginal languages in communities by minority language education?

Mr. Chairman, I have to get the Member to repeat that question. Sorry.

In regards to the bottom of the page where it is called minority language education and second language instruction by way of French, I would like to know about the $2.2 million we received from Heritage Canada. Is any of that money being expended for aboriginal languages?

Mr. Chairman, the money is geared towards the French program. Mahsi.

Again, Mr. Chairman, the point I am trying to make earlier on is that, for nine communities, we have $2.9 million, but yet for one language group who basically have $2.5 million. Again, I think that realizing that the majority of residents of the Northwest Territories are aboriginal people, it doesn’t really correlate with that statistic. I think that, if anything, we have to find ways of putting more dollars into aboriginal languages. I think we have to work with the federal government in regards to Heritage Canada to realizing that aboriginal languages should be funded through the federal Heritage Fund system. I think that they are starting to realize that in regards to the Languages Commissioner for Canada. I think that this issue has come up before. But again, it seems like whatever dollars we get is not equitably distributed, realizing that we have 11 official languages in the Northwest Territories, not just two.

Mr. Chairman, yes, we clearly highlight the nine aboriginal official language groups here in the Northwest Territories. The number that we are looking at is all federal funding. We do provide additional funding to aboriginal language groups. On page 10-17, as you can see, the $8 million for aboriginal languages and cultural education. This is just the federal funding. Of course, there are certain guidelines that we need to follow. But I assure the Members that this has been addressed to the federal Ministers, provincial Ministers and territorial Ministers. Our uniqueness, and, geographically, our remoteness, and the high cost of living, and our nine official aboriginal language groups clearly are recognized in the Northwest Territories. Unfortunately, the federal government does not recognize that. At the same time, I continue to pressure the federal government to recognize that. The funding itself, we are looking at renewing our agreement as well. So we will continue to stress that. Mahsi, Mr. Chairman.

Can the Minister let me know when the renewal for the new Languages Agreement is up? When will we possibly see a new agreement coming into place?

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated, we are in the process of renewing, so we are negotiating with the federal government right now. We are obviously asking for more than what is highlighted here. We are hoping to get more. There will be clearly our portion as a department towards the federal government. Any pressure we can put on them, we will continue to do so. Mahsi.

Mr. Chairman, in regards to Nunavut, Nunavut has legislation in regards to their new language protection legislation because they feel that they need protection for their languages, in Nunavut. I am wondering, is that something that the Minister and his colleague from Nunavut can use by way of arguing for more funds from the federal government, realizing that our official languages in the Northwest Territories, especially the aboriginal languages, are threatened. They are endangered of being lost. I think that, on that ground, it should be like the whooping crane or the spotted owl that we find out that something is threatened and endangered, they throw a bunch of money at it. I think that maybe that is the approach we should take. Go into Ottawa and try to find ways that we can, along with our colleagues from Nunavut, use the argument in regards to them having to pass legislation to language protection legislation in regards to the Inuit language. I think that is maybe an approach this government should consider. Has the Minister been working with the Nunavut government in regards to such an approach, going to the federal government realizing that we do have our languages being threatened and we do have to do whatever we can to protect them? Has that been something that the Minister can comment on or if he has been working with the Nunavut government on that?

Mr. Chairman, yes, this is the area of interest from the, more specifically, the two jurisdictions, territorial Nunavut and Northwest Territories. Of course, the Yukon, we still want them to be part of moving forward to push our aboriginal languages. This new Minister of Nunavut, I have had the courtesy of meeting him just last week during the FPT on education. He is also the Minister responsible for official languages. He and I will continue to push, and also with the Yukon Minister that is responsible for Education and also the language itself. We have done that in the past, Mr. Chairman. We partnered up and pushed the federal government to possibly hear us out to say, we are different than other jurisdictions. Not only that, Mr. Chairman, I have been pushing with my counterparts throughout Canada about the possibility of having another FPT pertaining to our official languages, aboriginal languages. We do have one for francophone, but we don’t have one for aboriginal languages. So I’ll certainly continue to push that. I’m hoping we’ll see some light at the end

of the tunnel to say, okay, let’s have an FPT strictly for aboriginal languages throughout Canada. So I certainly will be sharing that with aboriginal leaders, as well, to push it forward. So, yes, we’ll partner up with our territorial colleagues to push further with the federal government on our importance of existence. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. We’re reviewing contributions on page 10-18. Is committee agreed?