Thank you, Mr. Vandenberg. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s really it. I’ll be happy to leave it there. Again, there is a strong government-wide aspect to this. This department is responsible for the results of a policy or lack of it and it’s an opportunity that I am highlighting at this time. I appreciate that opportunity and I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a quick question. He was mentioning about the berm and I’m just curious: Do we end up booking these as liabilities under our environmental file or do we, at this time, when we do replacements, remediate them? That said, do we actually remediate them on

site or do we actually remove the soil completely as the contaminant from the area? I’m just trying to get a sense of how we juggle that or deal with that booking. Because, I mean, I could be not correct on this observation, but through my short time on this earth I’ve seen very few berms that are around tanks that don’t have any hydrocarbons in them. I have yet to see one – I’ll say it that way – that doesn’t have problems. I’m just curious on what we end up doing with that environmental liability. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We’ll go to Mr. Guy.

Although I’m not Mr. Bromley – I don’t wear a green cape to work with the environmental symbol on it – I do care equally about some of these particular concerns, and I’m just curious as the opportunity when we do this do we ensure that we tackle this particular problem rather than booking it against a particular liability. But I think Mr. Guy said there isn’t a particular problem at this spot, if I understood him correctly, but maybe… I see him waving his pen not in a mean gesture way, so I suspect he would like to reply. The issue for me is I’m just curious on how we address that particular problem only because it was mentioned and it sort of piqued an interest. Thank you.

Fair enough. That’s both important to me and I’m sure that’s very important to the community. Like I said, I heard it and it did pique a bit of interest on how we address that. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Public Works and Services, activity summary, petroleum products division, infrastructure investment summary, total

infrastructure investment summary, $3.86 million. Does the committee agree?

Thank you. I would ask Members to return to 5-2 for the department summary. Public Works and Services, department summary, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $11.241 million. Does the committee agree?

Thank you very much. Since that concludes Public Works and Services, does the committee agree that consideration of the Department of Public Works and Services is completed?

Thank you very much. I would like to thank Minister Lafferty and his team today, Mr. Vandenberg and Mr. Guy, for their time. If that’s the case, we’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witness out. Thank you for your time today.

Thank you, committee. We agreed earlier today we will be covering the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Is that still agreeable?

I would ask the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty, if he has any opening remarks or if he wants to bring his witnesses into the House.

: Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

I would ask the Sergeant-at-Arms if he wouldn’t mind escorting the witnesses into the Chamber, please.

Thank you, committee members. I would like to again welcome the members to the House. I will ask Minister Lafferty to please introduce his witness.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Mr. Dan Daniels, deputy minister, Education, Culture and Employment. Mahsi.

Thank you. I will now open the floor to general comments on the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Any questions? Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to make a few comments to the infrastructure for the Department of Education. I wanted to ask the department, when they are doing their capital planning or their needs assessment, if the community of Colville Lake is in line anywhere in the needs assessment for a new learning centre.

They are operating out of an older unit. They have some pretty good success by having a person in there working with the community and the older people. I think that it’s about time that this community be looked at as a community where a learning centre can be brought in and established to have a proper facility to upgrade, do specific community projects in education or culture and even with employment training, if Colville Lake could be identified as a community where a possible learning centre could be worked in the capital needs or capital planning process.

I know the Minister of Finance has said that money is going to be an issue and I do agree with the Minister; however, we could look beyond these next four years to see if that is something that is possible. …(inaudible)...infrastructure in their existing colleges. There were even discussions in the last Assembly on Yellowknife looking at a campus. There are lots of discussions on those types of infrastructure.

I guess I wanted to ask the Minister to keep your eye on the ball on some of the communities that don’t have facilities such as learning centres or campuses, if some discussion could happen around a new school for Colville Lake and a learning centre combination of a whole bunch of things, how we can move in that type of direction.

I spoke to the Minister of Public Works. Now I want to speak to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on the washroom facilities in this school. There are upgraded washroom facilities – I know a lot of people use them in camping situations – and I wonder if the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment could think about putting some upgraded washroom facilities in Colville Lake School, since the Minister of Public Works says it will be another year for that washroom in Colville Lake portable and the log building school won’t be useable.

I’m asking for some creativity from this department or this government here. Look at other ways rather than saying, well, too late. I think they need to wake up and smell the honey bucket here, on this issue here. There are 53 people that work in this building here. If you bring that situation to this building here for 53 people, you’re going to have a public outcry. You’re going to have a huge, huge demonstration. People will not stand for it. Why do we allow our kids in Colville Lake and say it’s tolerable? Tolerate this. We can’t even use the outside outhouses. It’s too cold. You don’t allow little kids to do that. At one time it was okay, but we’ve moved beyond that.

So I’m asking for some creativity from this department so those facilities, those units…

There’s no proper ventilation in the school for those honey buckets, and I said before, the smell isn’t always great, but we expect the little kindergartens, grade fours and grade threes to live with it and be

okay with it. We also put our teachers in those types of situations. It’s not a very good learning and educational type of environment.

I don’t think any one of us in this building here would want to put our kids through that situation. It would be a bloody outcry from parents and from teachers. So I ask the Minister if he would look at some of those creativities to put proper washroom facilities in the school. If he is so convinced that the Department of Public Works can’t do it and it will be operational next year and MACA can’t put in the sewer lagoon. I already said there’s a sewer lagoon being used right now in Colville Lake, so a sewer truck there right now used in Colville Lake. If you fly there you will see the situation.

I guess I’m trying to put this issue on the table so we can have a good learning environment, because right now they’re not taking it very seriously, because what are they doing about the situation there? It’s almost like a joke. I guess that’s something that I want to ask the Minister here in the general comments.

In Deline they’re looking at doing some work on their school, hopefully, by the people. They want a new school in Deline also, but I want to ask the Minister if he could provide me with the process of the needs to go in to renovate the school or to put a new school in Deline. What is the comparison? What is the analysis? What will it take?

In Colville Lake I know they need one; there’s no doubt about it. There are boxes and boxes of stacked material, written material in the school. They’re running out of space. They should at least put in a proper building there for space to store some of their building supplies, educational supplies. They’re doing the best they can, those teachers in Colville Lake. God bless their souls; God bless their hearts for doing the best they can. I think we need to pull up our socks in the Government and do all that we can to help the teachers help the kids.

So I want to ask the Minister those two big ones. Fort Good Hope is looking for some help with their track and field. They have a brand new school, thanks to the government, thanks to the Minister, but there is a lot behind the school that is not developed and they want to put a proper track and field facility in there. They just don’t have that type of dollars; we heard that already.

Those are some of my general comments to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. The needs are high. The money is not too much. We need to remember our small communities or some of the things that we don’t have that some of the larger centres have. We need to go back and relook at those, and revisit those and put those needs in the small communities. My people, our goals and aspirations are no different than anybody else in the Northwest Territories. We are looking for

help there also. Those are my comments from the Sahtu.