I certainly look forward to the update from the Minister, because the library is still called a resource centre. It’s kind of a shame when our children can go to the library and they cannot really look at books and sign out books. They can do it on-line, but it’s kind of cumbersome for the younger children to do that. It will be a good thing once we can establish a full library in Fort Simpson.

One of the other suggestions that I did make several years ago was to classify it as a regional library and put it in legislation. It then becomes a funded facility, but that’s one of the ways that we can do it, but I’m glad that the department continues to support the community of Fort Simpson and work towards an expanded and better facility that can actually house books and children can look at them. In the news, it’s quite critical that our children are spending way too much time on-line, i-Pads and that kind of stuff. Getting back to just having books around is a good thing. Right now in Fort Simpson, we’re right in that crux where children are depending on i-Pads and other media just to do their reading when the way you stimulate imagination is by reading and imagining as opposed to visual learning. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. I didn’t quite hear a question there, but I’ll let the Minister reply. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I totally agree with the Member. This is one area where we’ll continue to focus, because it’s been in the works for some time now. Formula funding,

based on the library allocation, we’ll definitely be discussing further. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Next on my list I have Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One thing I forgot to mention earlier was along the lines of junior kindergarten. I’m really impressed by the board in the Tlicho region that they’re moving ahead with actually implementing the junior kindergarten in the Tlicho language. I’m really impressed by that. I know they’re working very hard to keep their culture and tradition alive. That’s really great to see and I look forward to that happening in other regions as well as the Sahtu. Hopefully one day very soon it’s up in the Beaufort-Delta region, whether it’s in Gwich’in or Inuvialuktun. I think we’re on the right path here and I just wanted to commend the department in working with the Tlicho region and hopefully very soon with other regions as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I certainly hope too. I would like to see all regions with full-fledged immersion programming. This is a great start for us. The South Slave started it off and then the Tlicho, then Gwich’in and other regions. I would like to see all of them, actually. That would be our long-term goal.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Committee, we’re on 10-17. Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one more brief thing. I know the department is working on the curriculum within the Gwich’in language to hopefully bring forward very soon. I know this firsthand because I had the opportunity to travel with the Minister to Alaska to see how they operate over in Alaska with the Gwich’in language. It was very impressive to see two young students there who didn’t know very much Gwich’in when they began, but within not even their first year they are very fluent and speaking with their teacher. I know that’s one area that the Tlicho are moving on, because they were also accompanying us there. It’s really looking positive and I look forward to the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. With these kinds of experiences on trips, we bring back best practices and start implementing them in our region. Slowly we’re doing that with the Tlicho and other regions as much as possible. The sooner the better. Mahsi.

Thank you.

Thank you, committee. Committee, we’re going to group 10-18 and 10-21 combined. Activity summary, education and culture, grants and contributions, $207.928 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 10-23, information item, education and culture, active positions. Any questions?

Thank you, committee. Page 10-25, activity summary, labour development and standards, operations expenditure summary, $10.727 million. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find myself from time to time forwarding people to this particular office. I’m just curious on what type of outreach is provided to the everyday citizen. It’s not so much the employers I’m concerned about, it’s more about the employees that I find that they come to me and say, I think something is wrong, I don’t know who to complain to about what’s happening at our office, and I try to put them in this particular direction. I’m just wondering: are we doing enough to explain employer/employee rights? Are we giving people any awareness that they need to know where to go?

Quite often I hear the first thing is, I’ve got an issue at my office, it’s not a government office, and they’ll say it must be a human rights issue. I say, well, have you started with the employment law first to find out if that’s where it falls under. They looked shocked, then I have to describe where it is and how to get there, so I guess, in short, what type of outreach do we provide the general community – and I’m talking about the whole territory – about the availability and services offered in this? Like I say, I find myself regularly pointing people in this particular direction that’s not necessarily an MLA issue and it’s not for me to say if it’s a labour or human rights issue, but to try to give people the best advice and certainly the right advice so they can follow through with their particular concern, and if it is a concern, at least they have an avenue to pursue it properly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. For that we’ll go to Mr. Heide.

Thank you. If I were to ask where these pamphlets are, where do we find them? At this point, if they’re sitting at the office, they’re already there. Where would the general person trip across this information to know to go there?

One of the problems I often find with saying go check our website, everything is on there, it’s a bit of a cumbersome and sometimes intimidating process and sometimes you really have to know what you’re looking for to find it.

So where would we find some of these pamphlets, or don’t we have posters, do they do an occasional – I’m not talking about every newspaper – but do they do an occasional ad? We see some of these on-line websites such as, for example, Yellowknife Trader, YK Trader. They have little ads on there. Things like that. How do we do our outreach as provided by the staff there just a second ago? Thank you.