Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did make some comments on the opening of the capital budget. I made some comments about education. I am particularly concerned that the Education, Culture and Employment capital plan doesn’t include any projects for the city of Yellowknife. We have a number of schools within the city that were on the plan last year. When we reviewed capital last year, there was some indication that a couple of schools would be on the plan for this year and they are no longer.
When you look at the capital plan, there are really only two major capital projects in the ECE plan this year. One is Diamond Jenness School in Hay River and the other is the two schools in Inuvik. Those
are ongoing capital projects which have been going for a couple of years and they will go on for a couple more years.
But I asked some questions of the Finance Minister and the Minister for Public Works, when they were here during opening comments, about the 10-year education facility plan for Yellowknife. That plan has been in the works for awhile. It was finished, I believe, in May of this year and it was shared with some Members. So I asked the Minister, during opening comments, why the recommendations from that Yellowknife education facility plan were not reflected in the capital budget that we have before us. The answer that I got was that the YK school plan is something we think will be a very valuable document; however, the document was not completed at the time we put our capital budget together.
I would like to ask the Minister of Education why, if this facility plan was done in May and was shared with Members sometime in the spring -- I can’t quite remember when, I think it was in May or early June -- that would seem to be to me quite enough time to get at least one project or at least some indication where these projects will fit in a capital plan into this 2011-12 capital budget.
So having kind of a longwinded way around this, the question to the Minister is: Since we have a facility plan for the educational facilities in Yellowknife, and since we have an Aurora College lease which expires in 2012, why do we not have any indication of the recommendations of this facility plan in this current capital budget? Thank you.