Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is an urgent need for a stand-alone Aurora College campus in Yellowknife. At this time the other two NWT communities with comprehensive college curriculums, Inuvik and Fort Smith, both have stand-alone campus buildings and designated student housing infrastructure. Yellowknife has neither, however. Aurora College students attending courses in Yellowknife take their classes in a crowded, leased space in a high-rise building. The lease on that space was renewed last year but only for a short time.
The housing stock at Yellowknife North Slave Campus is very limited and all units are rented, not owned. So do we have plans for the future? I sure hope so.
This government prides itself on being fair and equitable on striving to provide the same opportunities to all residents. Students taking programs in Yellowknife deserve the same treatment and the same support and campus amenities as the other campuses. But the current campus situation in YK cannot be said to be fair to the students nor can it be considered a situation equal to that of the other two campuses.
We should be much further ahead in the planning for a stand-alone Yellowknife campus than we are. It is the responsibility of the Minister to ensure NWT education facilities are up to expected standards and as fair and equal as possible. The Minister should be working with the college board and president to get this project started, to get this project beyond just the talking stage. There has been a lot of talk about this project but so far no concrete action. We should be anticipating the start of actual construction in three or four years’ time. Are we there yet? I think not.
I recognize that our fiscal situation is tight right now and that it will be so for the next couple of years. I can accept that it is necessary to reduce our capital budget, that we need to be fiscally prudent, but what I cannot accept is that future infrastructure plans for this government do not include a Yellowknife Aurora Campus project.
We need college programs which have relevance to the employment realities of today. A stand-alone Yellowknife campus will help with that, and it must be a high priority for this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.