The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. It was a spectacular trip to the Sahtu region and we did visit the school as well, toured the school there. Yes, it is a small school for the size of the population, but at the same time we are discussing, as part of the capital planning process, we need to reassess, we need to re-evaluate the school status. There may be other schools similar to that, but those are ongoing discussions that we do have with the district education authorities or council. It will be at their request, as well, if they are concerned or they want to have an extension on their school or a new school. So that should be the planning stages. So, Mr. Speaker, we are discussing this, because it was brought to my attention as well. Mahsi.

Thank you. I would like to ask the Minister to go a step further in terms of providing what he says is his mandate was to provide quality education in the Northwest Territories, specifically for Colville Lake, Mr. Speaker. That school that I talked about still has no running water, it has a honey bucket for a sanitary facility. I want to ask what things can bring Colville Lake School up to a quality education standard in the Northwest Territories, like any other school in the North. Again, if I could ask the Minister, how many schools like this in the Northwest Territories are under similar teaching conditions for the mandate that he is supposed to be working on?

Part of the discussion that we’ve had in the community was also... At times it is the wish of the community not to have running water, but at the same time we are pursuing with the school to put in a piping system for running water because we feel that we need to have students healthy in the school so the germs don’t spread around. So, Mr. Speaker, we are committing $225,000 to deal with that matter. At the same time we need to look forward at how we can work with the community on expansion down the road. So, Mr. Speaker, again, we need to work with the DEC and DEA at the community level. They’re the ones who the schools are under and we need to work closely with them. The visit to the community was a good opportunity for us to get into the community with my staff and just to see the school, the size of the school, how compact it is and so forth. So, yes, we will be putting in the piping system this year.

I do want to say that the community certainly appreciates the Minister’s tours in the Sahtu region that we had. I want to ask the Minister about his consultation and discussion and if he will come back in time on his review and if his review reviewed the adequacy against school capital standards and criteria for the Colville Lake School.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Item 8, written questions. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I request unanimous consent to return to item 5 on the Order Paper, recognition of visitors in the gallery.

---Unanimous consent granted