Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We are currently dealing with the college when it comes to the community learning centres. We’ve heard from some of the communities. I believe there are 23 communities with community learning centres and 10 without, so those are the communities that we hear from. We’ve been dealing with the college at that level.

The Member alluded to a needs assessment at the community level. What we’re doing now is, obviously my department is overseeing the needs assessment and feasibility study 2014-15, and the Member is asking if it will be captured as part of using our existing infrastructure. Yes, it will be part of the study, the scope of the study, which will highlight existing education, training facilities and also infrastructure. Also, using an existing training program and how can we improve in those training programs, as well, whether it be at the local, regional or even at the territorial level. There are other pools of the local jobs and just the skills analysis and the training requirements. Those are areas of interest that have been ongoing for a number of months and a number of years now and it’s finally here. It has given us the tools that we can work with, with the community, with the experts at the community level and at the regional level too.

Schools in the small communities, the Member talked about kids falling behind and whether it was due to infrastructure. This is an area that we have heard over and over from the community leaders, the educators. Due to that fact, we’ve developed the overall Educational Renewal and Innovation, and that will certainly capture and it’s one of the pillars as focusing on small communities, staff and student supports, those types of programs. We also talk about the funding formula as well. Even though we talk about the capital planning process, now those areas will definitely be captured, even the culture preservation that the Member was alluding to, that we are doing various initiatives within our Aboriginal Languages Secretariat that will capture that culture preservation and also our language as well.

The unemployment rate, we’re fully aware that some of the larger centres are quite low, but outlying communities, especially the remote

communities, the unemployment rate is high up there, and the Member has indicated that there is just a recent Grade 12 graduate who is a custodian. Those are concerns that are brought to our attention as well. We are working with the stakeholders at the community level to develop some opportunities for those community members, whether it be the Grade 12 graduates, the people that have been trained and even the post-secondary students who are coming back to their communities. So with this needs assessment that is before us, that will capture all those areas of interest from the communities. So, Mr. Chair, this is what we’re doing from the communities’ perspective and also the regional perspective as a department working with the Sahtu region. Mahsi.