Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to follow up just briefly on that same topic. I think the Minister is clearly aware that the elders and chiefs of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation are very interested in having the Weledeh language

being recognized as unique and having it considered for official language recognition, and they have been chatting about this for a good year now or longer. I am sure the elders have been at it longer. I am wondering how the Minister is entertaining and supporting this request. Thank you.

Minister Lafferty.

Mr. Chairman, this matter has been brought up by the Member earlier and we need to look at all aspects of how we recognize official language. We need to look at the linguistics of it. We need to look at the history of the language, where it came from and how many words are different from the Tlicho language.

Mr. Chairman, it can be complex, but this is a piece of work that is before us. I am working within my department with the language group. We need to gather more detailed information about the history and the linguistics of the language itself and the comparison with other closely related languages such as Tlicho, which is one of the official languages.

Mr. Chairman, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done on this. Any changes we make to official languages, of course, will be public consultation as well. All I can say at this point is we are working on this file at the preliminary stages, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, thanks for the Minister’s remarks. I think the Yellowknives Dene will appreciate that work and will be right there participating.

I just want to say, before I move on, that I am very pleased with about 15 percent increase to the budget for official languages and I want to recognize the Minister for carving out those dollars. I know there are many competing demands, so that extra $1.1 million is going to be an important contribution. I think we need it, obviously, to follow up on the new Languages Strategy.

I just had a quick question on inclusive schooling. We chatted about this quite a bit last year and it is a program that has been adapted in the Northwest Territories, as I understand from my questioning at that time. Because of findings elsewhere, we have never done the analysis to see if that actually applies in the Northwest Territories, where I think we are all prepared to recognize that we have a somewhat unique situation and, personally, I do question the applicability of the data elsewhere to our situation. I am wondering if the Minister has done any research. Has his staff done any research and evaluation of inclusive schooling, comparing it with the previous tradition, we will call it, in assessing student graduation rates in the Northwest Territories?

Deputy Minister Daniels.

I appreciate Mr. Daniels’ remarks. I am pleased to hear that those discussions are happening. I am not saying that we need to jump anywhere without the information. I am pleased to see the program go ahead until we have done that analysis, but I hope the department does decide to do it. Obviously, this is a key one. We want our students to graduate. I hear a lot of the anecdotal information, not exactly anecdotal, of specific cases where in the older system it seemed to work fine and I am sure there must be cases out there where it didn’t. I don’t hear about those, so it would be good to get some real, objective analysis of the information.

Just in terms of a question, does the Minister feel like we have the information available? Should we decide to do that analysis, do we have the data that we can look at to answer questions, to evaluate inclusive versus the more traditional approach in the Northwest Territories? Mahsi.

Minister of Education.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. We have to look at the whole system to see what we have, and I am sure we do have some information and we will have to gather that information and we will share with the Members. Mahsi.

Next I have Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of quick questions on the culture and heritage section. I understand, from your statement yesterday, that there is an additional $200,000 being put into the budget to help with some museum displays and I think that is great. I think that is fantastic. What I am curious about is, has there been any thought with these displays and with displays that already exist in the museum, whether they are in storage or whether they are out for public consumption, has there been any thought about travelling some of these shows around in southern Canada, maybe even other locations in the Northwest Territories, to give the people in the

Northwest Territories an idea what is here, but more importantly, maybe partnering with Industry, Tourism and Investment to get some of those down south so that people can really see what is here?

The reason I bring it up is earlier this year, I guess it was later last year, I was at the museum and there was a fantastic display from Quebec in there; I think it was Quebec. It is a travelling show that goes from museum to museum to museum. It was great and there were a lot of people there to see it. I think we have some amazing displays up here, some amazing culture and if we can get those things travelled around a bit, I think it will turn peoples’ attention to the North. I think it is a great opportunity for a partnership between Industry, Tourism and Investment and Education, Culture and Employment. Has there been any thought about as we design our displays, can we make them so that we can travel them around to different jurisdictions? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. This specific funding increase is more specifically for the Northwest Territories, but we have discussed this already with the Member and we are open to the idea of having southern tours with our exhibits. I am working closely with the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, as well, to see if this could be an option or something that we can explore. This is a working document that we are currently exploring between the parties and we will keep Members posted on this matter. Mahsi.

Thank you. Thanks to the Minister for that. That is excellent. I think partnerships are important and I look forward to hearing more about that. In the design of these current displays, if you can start thinking about transportation, it might help all to the design to make travel in the future easier. Just a thought.

The other thing that I have a question about is, once upon a time we housed a significant number of artefacts and materials that I think were considered to be Nunavut’s and we were housing them at the museum and I think out at the warehouse as well. I have been told that a lot of that material has been shipped to Nunavut now. Can you confirm whether that is true or not? Are we still housing a significant amount of stuff for Nunavut or has it finally gone over, and if so, if we have sent it, what are we doing with all that space? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Deputy Minister Daniels.

Thank you. That sounds really good. I am just slightly confused. Does that mean some of that space is going to be used for exhibits itself? Does that mean we are actually going to have more exhibit space in the museum or does it mean it is where we can bring in our product from the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, Tlicho and store it there and help us build more exhibits? Is it going to give us more places where people can see stuff or is it still going to be storage but it is going to enhance our existing locations where we are going to be building exhibits?

Thank you. That is excellent. I imagine that is a several-year project and that is not going to happen right away. Do we know what the $200,000 specifically is going to be used for? Do we know what display we are creating, which region is going to be represented with that $200,000?

Next I have Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m not 100 percent sure this is exactly in the right section, but I can’t find another area for it. I just wanted to ask the Minister if he and his department have some sort of plan to address the issue of

absenteeism. That’s been a topic where last year it was in the news where kids are losing a year by the time they’re getting halfway through elementary school just from being absent so much. So absenteeism is an issue that’s affecting the kids’ education levels when they finish grade 12 because people are continuing to pass through the system with their peers, so by the time they finish grade 12, if they miss a lot of school, they’re behind. I’m wondering if there’s any plan to address that specific issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I was just trying to get confirmation on that. I think there was a slight increase, not much, but a slight increase in enrolment. I think we are making some strides in that area where Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, a census was taken a year and a half ago. There’s been a recommendation that came forward for us to provide additional funding, which we’ve provided to the school boards to deal specifically with enrolment issues and concerns, and they’ve done what they can as a school board in their schools and in their community. I think that captured a slight increase in enrolment, which is great.

Yes, there is a plan with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative that’s currently in discussion right now and we have two more regions to attend. That particular issue has been brought up in each and every region, Mr. Chair. This is a serious matter and we’re very concerned, as well, but at the same time it’s going up a bit. So I think we’re doing the right things and we want to do more in that respect. There are more recommendations that are coming from the communities that we’ll take seriously into consideration. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.