Thank you. I’d like to add to the Minister’s comments and I think it’s a question of

timing, and more importantly, it’s putting the resources into it. I noted, looking at our budget, that we’re putting a lot of money into French immersion, and more importantly, developing French programs and services in the Northwest Territories. But I think by making those investments, we’re losing sight of the most important component of that in the history of the Northwest Territories and indigenous people that live here and their history. I think one thing that I find, being in this House for almost 16 years, is that the uneducated public, which really doesn’t understand Aboriginal rights in the Northwest Territories or treaty rights and land claims rights that have been settled, regardless if it’s the old treaties or modern day treaties. That’s the stuff that we have to develop that’s useful and that people could be educated in and learn and really understand the issues in the Northwest Territories. So which arm of your department is doing the work to get this curriculum off the ground to get it into our classrooms?

Mahsi. It is our department that is responsible to deliver these programs into the schools. Again, I have to reiterate that we need to work with Alberta and also the DEAs and DECs having those initiatives. Not only that, but the Aboriginal student achievement that’s underway, they’ve discussed that as well, having a residential school era in our school system, land claims, self-government. We’re introducing to our social program development area within the curriculum. So we are listening to the people and those will be written out after this fiscal year. It will take some time, but we will make those initiatives key priorities for this government. Mahsi.

Thank you. It’s good to develop curriculum and whatnot and put it into the schools, but we have to make it mandatory that people will actually take the course, learn the course and get credits for those courses. What I’d like to know is will those courses, regardless if it’s Northern Studies, Aboriginal studies, that it be mandatory in all high schools in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

That will be the discussion we need to have. In the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, that’s been highlighted as well, that it be mandatory for the students to take those specific courses whether they be Aboriginal students or non-Aboriginal students. So those are discussions that we’re having, ongoing discussions. We still have two forums to attend and then the final package will reflect on that as well. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister to keep us abreast in regard to where this is going and give us updates whenever

possible. So I’d like to ask the Minister for ongoing updates on where the progress of this is going. Thank you.

Mahsi. I definitely will commit in this House to keep the Members up to speed on what’s happening with the ASA. We will be going to the Beaufort-Delta in May. So those are the discussions we’ll continue to have and conclude that discussion at that time. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Being Education Week I want to ask the Minister of Education a few questions regarding the Sahtu. Mr. Speaker, education, either you’re on the land, and my people always wanted to be successful even on the land. Now today in the new world of making a living we want to be successful.

Mr. Speaker, on the land we had an open university. In the Sahtu now we have Aurora College centres. I noted that many of our students are now leaving the Sahtu region for other centres for their educational careers. I want to ask the Minister, when he is talking with his colleagues about capital planning, if they would look at the possibility of some serious discussions around looking at the need for a Sahtu trades centre in the region. Would the Minister commit to that?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you. The Minister indicated that they are working on gathering information; and being quite familiar with the process of moving it through the stages to a vote for capital needs, that’s quite a distance away. So I want to ask the Minister when you are gathering information within the time frame of this government, would this continue to the next government in terms of having a clear picture on whether the Sahtu will receive some good news to

say that a Sahtu trades centre is coming down the tube and putting it in the books for some discussion in the House?

Mahsi. That is the information that we are gathering, the needs assessment of the community, a trades centre versus a community learning centre that we have currently. So it could be a part of the discussion on the upcoming capital planning, but it all depends on the information that we do receive and we’ll try to expedite the process along with other major capital projects that we may be faced with. So we’ll do what we can as a department to push this towards the capital planning process. Mahsi.

Thank you. Has the department looked at other avenues to support this initiative, or partnerships in the region or in the North to look at where some cost savings can be looked at? Because there are other needs also. I hear from Members that want to have institutions in the North also.

Mahsi. Any assistance the Member can provide, we’d really appreciate it and discussing a partnership approach has always been our push as the Government of the Northwest Territories, we’re always seeking out potential partners. So we will be seeking out what kind of capacities are out there with regards to partnerships. So those are discussions that are open for us as well. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is certainly showing me a little love here in terms of putting this Sahtu trades centre. Would the Minister bring forward this discussion to the next Aurora College Board for serious discussion to look at a trades centre in the Sahtu in order to move it to the next step of putting it in the books?

I do believe there is a Board of Governors meeting coming up and the Sahtu has a representative on there. I’m sure that individual will bring that discussion forward. This will likely be the topic of discussion at that level.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment going back to my Member’s statement when I talked about a stand-alone campus for Aurora College located here in Yellowknife.

Yesterday I was asking some questions of the Minister of Health and Social Services about

planning dollars and found out that there’s $900,000 in planning for Stanton. I’m wondering if Education has any planning money in the works for a new stand-alone campus for Aurora College here in Yellowknife.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. What I can tell the Member is that this is an area that we’ve been discussing for a number of years now. The lease is coming up as well. We need to plan for that this fall. The stand-alone campus we’ve been discussing with other jurisdictions as well, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavut, and other jurisdictions about how we can move forward as a university of the North. We talk about the campus here and we talk about a university of the North building on the existing campuses.

This is an area that’s important for our department and we’ll continue to push forward. I will keep the Members up to speed on what’s been happening with our discussion. A recent discussion that I had just the other day I will provide that information to the Members as well.

The current space that the college utilizes at Northern United Place obviously isn’t conducive to a college campus. There’s no parking, there’s not enough room there. They obviously need a new building. I’d like to ask the Minister if there will be any planning dollars in the capital plan come this fall. I know there’s going to be an election in October, but I’d like to ask if there will be any planning dollars for this campus come the capital plan this fall.

That’s a discussion we need to have. I can’t stand here and say, yes, we’re going to commit dollars. We need to discuss further with the capital planning projects that will be before us. If we need to commit a certain amount of dollars towards the planning studies for the college campus, then we will do that. We need to discuss that further. At that point in time we need to highlight what the priorities are. This is one of the priorities we’ve been working towards, so we will be discussing it further if we need to allocate the funding at that time.