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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With respect to subsidizing students in the Northwest Territories, we do have one of the attractive benefits packages compared to other

jurisdictions. However, we have done our research, as well, on what other jurisdictions offer with respect to disabilities area. We have come out with various options within our department. We also heard, through the review of SFA, how we should be addressing or increasing our funding towards disability. We have done that through this budget planning process, where disability grant amounts from $8,000 to $10,000 per academic year. That’s just a start. I’m sure there will be others. There are all these different recommendations that were brought to our attention. We will definitely follow through with those.

So just to be clear for people who will be listening to this, when will the improved, enhanced student financial assistance for students with disabilities go into effect? When can people become eligible for that?

The Member is referring to the increase that should be taking effect, because we just went through the budget process, April 1st . That’s the information that I have,

from $8,000 to $10,000.

Again, we are doing more groundwork with respect to other jurisdictions, what kind of programs they offer. If it’s better or even more than what we offer, then seriously we’ll take those into consideration, as well, and make some changes to our programming as we move forward.

In my Member’s statement I referred to student financial assistance for students with disabilities seeking post-secondary education and I kind of inadvertently referred to it as being outside of the territory because that seems like where there are specialized programs for students with disabilities.

I’d like to ask the Minister, in his role as being responsible for Aurora College, has the college ever had in place, or ever contemplated putting in place, specialized programming that would allow students with disabilities, who are Northerners, stay here to take post-secondary education in various fields?

I’d just like to thank the Member for asking that particular question. We want to support our students here in the Northwest Territories to stay in the territory at the Aurora College campus. We have three campuses and we need to support those students. With the information the Member is asking for, I don’t have the specific history of it, but I can provide that information.

Part of my ongoing discussion with the president and chair is to raise the profile with them. If there hasn’t been any programming in that area, why not, and how can we move forward on this? I assure the Member that I will be addressing this with the college.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister if part of their consideration of what the college offers now, and what they could offer, would include, perhaps, travelling to or getting into communication with other post-secondary institutions that we do know already offer specialized programming for students with special needs.

My understanding is that there are certain programming for disability cross-functioning with various institutions. I need to get the latest update from the college and provide that to the Members, then we can discuss further how we can improve those programs or make additions.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.