Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the recent booming of the oil and gas activity in the Sahtu region, I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what is he doing or his department doing with the Aurora College to prepare our people to work in the oil patch development and have jobs so they can apply for jobs and make a career in that field? What is he doing? We are proposing a Sahtu tech. Will the Minister support that?

Mr. Speaker, I can definitely find out from the Aurora College – they are arm’s length from us when it comes to program delivery – and find out exactly what kind of program has been offered in the region pertaining to the Member’s request. I can get back to the Members as well. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. It is in regards to the Minister’s statement that he mentioned yesterday and working to increase the number of Aboriginal language speakers, provide employment opportunities for elders and improve educational opportunities for our Aboriginal students.

Mr. Speaker, with this whole work plan in place, I wanted to ask the Minister, will he give priority to those languages that are being detrimentally declining over the last few years. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories recognizes 11 official languages. Nine of them are Aboriginal languages. Yes, indeed, some of the languages, we are losing our language, more specifically, the Gwich’in area and the very reason why we have gone to Fairbanks, Alaska, to find out the best practices. We have initiated that and we brought the information back. We are pursuing rolling out the program.

Yes, all the languages in the Northwest Territories need to be protected, revitalized, and more specifically, those are on the verge of losing their language. We must put more emphasis on program delivery in those areas. That is our goal for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I know we have to put the programs and services into place for all languages. However, we do have a couple of languages that are close to extinction here, specifically the Gwich’in language. We have some in the South Slave. Will the Minister see those results and put the emphasis and priorities to address those languages and cultures first, before moving on to the ones that are already doing well in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Those are discussions that we definitely need to have with language experts from the region and communities because I need to hear them out. It won’t be coming from the top down to say this is what is good for you. I will be working with the Member and also the language experts at the community level. We did form a committee to deal with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative that is part of that and also Aboriginal Languages Strategy.

There are certain languages that are almost on the verge of extinction. At the same time, we need to protect all languages. If we need to identify Gwich’in as the first priority and second priority and so forth, we need to have those discussions. Mahsi.

I appreciate all of the efforts that Education, Culture and Employment is doing to revitalize our languages and taking our Members down to Alaska to look at best practices that we can incorporate here in the Northwest Territories.

With that said, moving forward in the strategic plan, can the Minister look at possibly creating a curriculum in the Aurora College to address these languages? That is one avenue to do it to get our adults back into the Aurora College system to start learning the language. Will the Minister please respond and let me know if that is one avenue that he is looking at, is having the credited course through the Aurora College system on Aboriginal languages? I believe in Inuvik we have had some Spanish classes. I am looking at Gwich’in. I am

looking at Inuvialuktun. Will the Minister please answer that question? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yes, indeed, we are looking at all opportunities that may be available to us. Will there be the college program delivery in our own language? We have seen that at the University of Fairbanks, and even at the post-secondary level they were teaching in their own language with no English, period. It is our dream to be there. At the same time, we need to work with the college board of governors and the staff if they could deliver those types of programming. At the same time, we are lacking resource people, as well, those qualified Aboriginal-speaking teachers.

I am challenging the leadership around this table and across the Northwest Territories to promote more of those individuals that can pursue the Teacher Education Program that speak the language to come out of the programming with qualified qualifications so they can start teaching our own people in their own language. That is part of the wish and we will pursue that even further. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regards to the revitalization of Aboriginal languages and he has also talked previously about Aboriginal student achievement. Can he combine the two and make languages in elementary schools part of a strong curriculum in the schools and enhance that and put more funding towards that? Will the Minister commit to those funding dollars? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, that is part of the plan to have full-fledged emergent programs in schools. We may not be able to cover all schools at the beginning, but that is part of the long-term plan, part of the ASA and also Aboriginal Languages Strategy. We are going through a business planning cycle. We need to identify those funds. Those two documents that I have highlighted, it is a big document. It is a long-term strategy. We will be rolling out those programs. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Transportation has been using road salt for the de-icing agent in the Northwest Territories for the past 26 years. If the Member would like some detailed information on possible environmental impact of the use of road salt, I would be more than happy to ask the department for that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, in answering the Minister’s question, I will say yes.

Mr. Speaker, Environment Canada, as I am aware, has done a fair bit of research along Highway No. 3 to study the impact of road salt. Is the reason why the Department of Transportation wouldn’t typically monitor the amount of road salt considering the amount we use? At the same time, why do we use road salt? Why don’t we just go with gravel, which is a product naturally found here so we wouldn’t be introducing anything new and doing any harm to our environment? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the application of road salt happens when the temperature is minus 10 and rising in periods of close to freezing. It is considered to be better application than the gravel in those instances. It is not used all the time, all winter, but predominantly in the fall and the spring. Because our climate is changing and we are seeing more days where we are susceptible to freezing rain, the use of salt has increased. If the climate continues to change, that trend is likely to continue. Thank you.

Thank you, and I appreciate the answer from the Minister. Interestingly enough, through my research and, of course, some of the response for the Minister, it highlights minus 10 or warmer is basically the time, I’ll say the opportunity to use road salt, because if you use it when it’s colder than minus 10 it doesn’t work. So would the Minister of Transportation be willing to re-evaluate the Department of Transportation’s usage of road salt in the Northwest Territories because of the possible negative effects that are happening? I shouldn’t say possible, these are known negative effects that are happening to our environment. Would he be willing to review that policy? Thank you.

Thank you. As I mentioned earlier to the Member, I’d be more than happy to go back to the department to get their understanding of what any potential environmental impact is with the use of road salt. But like I said, we’ve been applying that to the roads here in the Northwest Territories for the past 26 years. So I will get that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Not to sound combative, but just because we’ve done it for 20 years this way doesn’t mean we couldn’t do it better or another way tomorrow. We’ve all been using the same beaver pelt hats where they use mercury on them in order to be safe. So, I’ll take the Minister’s point, though, and if he could provide that to the standing committee as well as all Members, that would be very useful for us, especially the companion of the Environment Canada study that has been looking at the lakes along the highways here. Thank you.