Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have to respectfully disagree with the comments from my colleague to my left. The campus here in Yellowknife is full and it is full to overflowing. It has been in need of some kind of an examination of the situation for probably five years, maybe 10 years now. Several years ago, when the lease was up for Northern United Place, where Aurora College Yellowknife Campus is now located, I believe I remember hearing the Minister say that, well, this is just going to be for a short time, we were going to do a planning study and we were going to look at building a facility to get them out of that space and into a stand-alone campus. That is not anywhere on
the horizon at the moment and it has not been for many years. I agree with Mr. Hawkins that it is time that we start getting serious about determining what we need for Aurora College.
Mr. Moses makes a really good point, that we have two other campuses which do have space and we could be moving some programs there, but I think we also have to accept that students don’t necessarily want to go to Inuvik or Fort Smith. I’m sorry to have to say that, but I think of the Teacher Education Program which was moved out of Yellowknife, it was a thriving program when it was in Yellowknife, and it moved to another campus and the numbers in that program have dropped significantly. Unfortunately, we have to face the fact that programs seem to thrive better here in Yellowknife because it is a bigger community, it has better services and all that stuff, which I hate to point out but it’s true.
It’s time that we have a facility here in Yellowknife for our Aurora College students which does not cause them to freeze in the winter and sweat to death in the summertime; it gives them enough space that they can actually have decent classrooms and it is well overdue. I fully support the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.