Thank you, Mr. Chair. General comments regarding Education, Culture and Employment for the early childhood development. I’m seeing a lot of success in the communities that I represent, in that the funding I hope does not get cut in regard to supplying of the breakfast program that they have there in the school.
The school system, I’ll start off with Tuk. We have teachers’ housing that’s coming up. The funding has run out to supply per door, $20,000 per door
per unit. We have five units. So it’s going to cause havoc on the teachers up in Tuk if we don’t get our agreement signed, which we desperately need to keep good teachers in the community. That has to be looked at.
We have not enough teachers. We have overcrowding in grade 10 in the community and we should get some more help, if that’s possible. I want the Minister to be taking these. I’m not going to go back to ECE, I’m going to come here and this is where it should be done, because all the time I always get referred back to ECE in the community in the Beaufort-Delta and nothing happens.
The high school in Sachs Harbour, that’s another thing we’re failing, Mr. Minister, in regard to the students up in Sachs Harbour. From grade 10, 11 and 12 the kids are going into Inuvik and they’re feeling uncomfortable. Half the time there’s not a safe place to stay so they come back into the community. We have to have shelter for them in a house, or a boarding house run by the department. The students there that were failing over the last two years now, three years we’re going on, the kids are having to come back in again and have to be re-educated just to get their upgrading to go to further courses in Aurora College. That’s not right.
The other communities, Paulatuk, we’re good there, but any funding for Paulatuk is just the retrofitting in regard to some retrofits into the school. I know I’ve been saying this the last three years. Also in Tuk, I mean, I’m looking at my big extension that I’ve been trying to work with and it’s probably going to have to come back to the next government to get the shop and the science lab and all that into the community. Getting back to Paulatuk, there should be some retrofits done to the community school. I’ve been there and the windows you can feel the draft coming in and the students are getting sick, which is not good.
The Adult Education Program is really needed in the community of Tuk. The community has no teacher, they have a student there and last year Tuk’s Aurora College had the most students all across the whole Northwest Territories. So we should try and get a teacher in the community as soon as possible.
Income security, again, we should have some petitions coming in in regard to getting the income support cheques given to the Northern Store or to the Co-op or to the Stanton Store. The monies that are given to the families are not being utilized for food; they’re being utilized for alcohol and drugs. That has to stop. I’m told it’s up to the community and the hamlet council to bring that forward to give to the Minister to make the changes. The people with ECE on income support, the monies, it’s just not there. The people are going hungry on the third week and it’s a really sad situation. There’s no work up in the communities and it’s tough. I was talking
to an elder in the community of Tuk, they said they were spending $350 on gas to go out hunting and he said they come back skunked sometimes, and they see caribou coming in that’s not in the boundary and they still won’t hunt because they’re keeping the boundary lines. So I think there should be some way that we could try to work together in regard to getting extra gas money to help these people in the community.
With education in the communities, we’re failing. This has got to be picked up. I know the Minister is working hard with the education system with what they’ve got, but we’ve got to try to find more ways to get these kids at the proper education level where we’re not social passing. You’ve got kids in grade 11 with a grade 6 reading level. That’s not right and we’ve got to work together to get this done. I really want to work with his office in regard to making something happen for the students that are falling through the cracks.
I’ll have more questions on the page-by-page, but thank you, Mr. Chair.