Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. In the Minister’s previous response, he was talking about schools in small communities and I did a Member’s statement last week. Most particularly for Trout Lake, in the budget here, we have renovations to the Charles Tetcho building. I have consistently made the case that is a community hall that was shared with the school. It looks like the renovations are to make more space for the schooling needs. Sorry, Trout Lake is one of the communities in the North that has a growing population, most particularly from zero to 10 years old, so they definitely need more schooling space.
At the same time, the community is concerned they will be losing community hall space. They advised they use the community hall six days a week for their healing programming, get-togethers, I think it has a sewing room, as well, and it does have a small gymnasium that all residents use.
So their concern is they have been asking for a stand-alone school, a replacement for the original Charles Tetcho School that burnt down some 15, 20 years ago. Pat of the whole process was the population was small and when they built the new community hall, I think Education took charge and they joint ventured with MACA and created a community hall plus a small room for schooling. The agreement and understanding of the community is one day they will get their own stand-alone school. Now the fear is if they do the renovations, they will lose the community hall plus they won’t be getting their own stand-alone school. So that is a concern.
I know that the bulk of the money in the budget here is slated for next year, so what exactly is the department planning? I think there’s planning study money being used right now. How are they engaging the community and what is the exact plan
for renovating the building right now? Thanks, Mr. Chair.