Sergeant-at-Arms, could you please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Would you like to introduce your witnesses to the House please.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Dana Heide, associate deputy minister with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment; and Tammy Allison, manager, capital planning, Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Heide, Ms. Allison, welcome to the Chamber.

Committee, as indicated earlier, we will forego opening comments. We will go directly to general comments. General comments, Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Minister, to the table. I want to look at the

progression of having the required infrastructure in our small communities and I am going to quickly allude to the Sahtu region, to the existing learning centres from Aurora College in our small communities. I have made note of it, Mr. Chairman, that I was in Deline last week at the economic leadership strategy meeting for the Sahtu region. In the economic leadership strategy meeting they talked about the appreciation of the department and looking at the needs assessment and no one was in the Sahtu region today. We have our appreciation that we can now say these are the needs assessments in the Sahtu. Can we now start matching those needs assessments to the existing facilities that we have or do we need to create additional infrastructure?

I was approached by one of the board members from the land corporation and the board member talked about the Aurora College Learning Centre in Tulita, where possibly a cooking program, training program, could be there. Right now we just don’t have that infrastructure. You may have it in Norman Wells, maybe, with the camps and cooks and that, you may have it in Deline with the Grey Goose having the facility there, so we wanted to look at that and ask the department, given that we have a certain amount of days left in this government here and how fast government works to get things done in our communities, is that a possibility of starting a second phase, I guess, to the needs assessment, to look at matching the infrastructure to the needs assessment and making sure that we have the facility if and when the oil and gas again ramps up? We have spinoff for those types of work that they are going to do in the region, such as under the exploration, the seismic, that we have qualified people that can be qualified to go into those camps as certified cooks or maintenance or office administration, some of those things. That’s what we want to look at under infrastructure.

The other one, of course, is something that the region talked about, also, was a training centre, we don’t know what kind, we haven’t yet seen the feasibility study. There are existing facilities right now in Norman Wells. The old Mackenzie House has been shut down as of yesterday. The last person who was out there shut the lights off. It’s an icon building in Norman Wells. It’s a 30-year-old building used by Imperial Oil and other contractors that come into Norman Wells. It’s a facility that has been there for a while. The leadership was looking at it. They don’t have the assessment of the costs and all the other things that go on to look at this facility. Is it worthwhile to the department to look at this and say is it possible, and if not, what else can we use it for if we’re looking at a future trades centre in the Sahtu region? They have the facilities there. The rooms are there. A kitchen, cafeteria style, is there. You can use that facility, so we want to look at that as an opportunity.

We appreciate the work that you’re going to be doing in the Sahtu communities for the energy needs for the schools and some of the things that our schools are desperately needing, such as Colville Lake, and based on that, I would also say I support other schools that need a facility in their communities to get the best type of education, because with that, from our reports that our students in our small communities are not doing well at the grade level. They’re actually one or two grades lagging back from their actual grade level. I don’t know if that is connected to the infrastructure we have or just the way things are at. That’s the quality of education we have now in our small communities.

I always said there are have and have-not communities in the Northwest Territories. There are communities that do not have some of the basic educational funds as in the larger centres, and we have to do without it. That’s a reality. There are communities in the Northwest Territories that are… Like in Canada, there are have provinces and have-not provinces. That’s a reality. By looking at the infrastructure and looking at the Sahtu, we can change that. The department is in the position to make a difference in a child’s life with the education. I supported you with Junior Kindergarten. It’s a good program. I see the benefits happening now in the Sahtu. That’s good. We need that.

Education and culture, we’re starting to move that. Like I said earlier in the House, the Sahtu had three key, essential components to make it work: sovereignty, institutions and culture. The culture is strong in our region. Like I said, I came to a point where in our leadership last week in Deline, the elders spoke strong about our culture. That’s something that’s ingrained in us. I’m looking for the Minister’s department to put infrastructure and culture in our communities.

The last point I want to talk about is the employment. When you look in the Sahtu, you look at the five communities, you look at Norman Wells having the lowest unemployment rate in the Northwest Territories, 4 percent. Unheard of. But when you look at the communities of Deline, Tulita, Colville Lake and Good Hope, our employment rate is only at 40 percent. It’s only 40 percent of our people working there. Why is that? It’s because there’s an industry in Norman Wells that’s working. In our small communities our industry is government contracts – when they’re there – it’s short term, it’s seasonal, but there’s no economy. When we have a high population of young people who are graduating from school, it’s high. Mr. Minister, you went to our grad last year. You were in Fort Good Hope. Like I said in one of my meetings, that one of our Grade 12s, she finished Grade 12 last year and you know what she’s doing this year in Tulita? She’s a custodian janitor

because she can’t find work. You know, that tells me something. Even though she’s in Grade 12, she’s doing anything and everything to do to get her work, to find a job. We’ve got to do better than that. The employment rate for us needs to be improved in the Sahtu. People want to work. That’s what I was told last week. We want work. We want to get off government dependency. I’ve got to set my people free.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I’ll allow the Minister to respond. Minister Lafferty.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Continuing on with general comments with Education, Culture and Employment, I have Mr. Menicoche.

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.

Thanks, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. As you see as part of the capital planning process, we’ve identified some funds, as the Member alluded to, for renovations to Trout Lake school, Charles Tetcho School as part of the renovation to the existing building space to be provided with adequate instructional space.

There have been several discussions that have taken place. As Minister responsible for Education and Mr. Beaulieu, who is responsible for Public Works and Services, and MLA Menicoche did visit the community along with the Dehcho Divisional Education Council and my senior staff to review the shortcomings of the school and discuss potential solutions. There have been other meetings, as well, where DDC and my department met on September, 20, 2013, to further discuss temporary measures. This is an area where we are investing as a temporary measure. There is also a long-term plan. There will be a planning study, as I indicated in the House last week, and that is on the way in 2014-15.

Those are some areas, and a needs assessment analysis and operational plan will determine the scope of work. Mr. Chair, if I missed out on key areas, if I could have Ms. Allison elaborate a bit more in detail. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Allison.

Thank you, Ms. Allison. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the Minister and staff for that answer. I think it’s important for me to hear that definitely it’s not meant to be a long-term solution. As you do the planning study, I think a few things are important to engage the community, to engage the chief and band council and let them know that. Chief Dolphus Jumbo has told me, he says, Kevin, I’ve seen this before. They’ll come and do temporary, but it will end up permanent. I don’t want to lose that stand-alone school that we’ve been working so hard to get. I think that’s important.

I don’t know if part of the scope of the planning study, perhaps I can get the Minister’s comment on this, is to get a class D estimate on what a whole replacement school would be. It would be interesting for me to know and to share with the community as they do their planning study. I’m pretty sure a class D estimate is not going to be too much work for the department to get those cost figures if the Minister can instruct whoever is doing that planning study to do that work as well.

I was just thinking in terms of funding, as well, Mr. Chair. What is the possibility of accessing Building Canada dollars slated for small communities for educational capital expenditures? I would like to get the Minister’s thoughts on that.

I see I’m running out of time, but I want to get some more clarification in. This is a different topic, but it’s the parking space for the Fort Liard school. If the Minister could address whether that will be completed in the 2015-16 capital budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Most definitely part of the planning study obviously would engage community leadership, community members. They need to be involved along the way. We are looking at the long term, up to 10 years ahead. The classification status is still yet to be identified. As I indicated, this is a planning study that is just currently underway in 2014-15. Whether it is classification C or D, E, that will be identified at that time.

The Building Canada Fund, I was just asking my staff if we ever accessed that kind of funding, and to my knowledge we haven’t identified an area where we can pursue that. I will get Ms. Allison to maybe elaborate a bit more in detail. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Allison.

Thank you, Ms. Allison. Continuing on, I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few areas of, I guess, concern. When we were talking about education with their very big department O and M, but obviously we’re making some changes within this department to give the best opportunity for our youth and our adults, depending on whatever level of education or degree where they are in their lives, what concerns me is just the amounts that have been allocated in this capital budget for Education, Culture and Employment. That’s 2.36 percent of the capital budget focused in this department when it’s such a big area of concern for obviously the small communities especially, and yet we’re not addressing some of those concerns.

When you look at some of the statistics, attendance is probably our biggest challenge to get kids into the seats in the schools, but if we have schools that aren’t even there, or even schools that are not adequate enough to house X number of students, then there’s possibly a reason why our attendance is so bad. That leads to a lot of other social determinants that affect a person’s life starting at a very young age. As I said, in the small communities we see that is pretty evident and you heard it here today.

Another thing that we’re doing this year in 23 of the schools, I believe, is the Junior Kindergarten, and I think in this capital budget we’re looking at making some renovations to some of the schools to address the needs that are going to be associated with bringing the four-year-olds into the school system. I think that as we learn what this Junior Kindergarten is doing, we’re going to see that we’re going to need to do more renovations moving forward, and once again the system, whether it’s a washroom or whether it’s creating new areas to do play-based activities, then those are costs that we’re going to see and they’re going to add stress to the educator, it will add stress to the school, and whether we’re prepared for that or not, I see that it is addressed in the capital budget, but it’s not addressed for all the schools. We’re going to see some challenges, and how are we going to address those moving forward? I know there have been talks about a lot of reallocation within this

department and where are we going to find the dollars to address some of these potential concerns that might be coming up here.

In Inuvik we do have an issue here with the Aurora College family units and when we’re going to get those up and running again, because I know the department is spending a lot of money right now as they’re in an agreement with one of the rental companies in Inuvik. Even though those family units aren’t being fully utilized because we have a low enrollment in the college, we’re spending a lot of money, throwing a lot of dollars at vacant units right now, family units. That’s money that could go into breakfast programs; that’s money that could be going to other things.

Last year we had a motion that was brought to the House regarding a stand-alone campus for here in Yellowknife, and we did go over and met with the staff, met with the students, we did a tour of the college, and it was evident that space was an issue here in Yellowknife for a lot of the departments and a lot of the programs that were being available. We did go to one room where we saw X number of nursing students all crowded together in one room. I can’t even remember how many there were, but there was quite a bit. That just goes back to my argument that we’ve got to start utilizing whatever infrastructure we have in the other campuses where we’re putting too much stress on the building, we’re putting too much stress on the instructors, and I think that the Minister really needs to have a good talk with the Board of Governors on how we start utilizing all the space that we have in the NWT for programs within the Aurora College field.

A couple of other concerns that I had with this department was when they are doing planning studies, you mentioned you’re doing some planning studies here, Inuvik was, you know, a lot of work went into that school. There was an issue around the dental office. It’s supposed to be something that’s supposed to be great for the kids and we’re not even using it. I think the planning study didn’t take that into consideration, and if you walk out of the school into the school grounds and you’re promoting play-based learning with Junior Kindergarten and you walk into the playgrounds and there’s no playground. There’s a lot of grass, a lot of hills, logs, I think that’s what it is. Our playground in Inuvik is logs. It’s ridiculous. When we do these planning studies, we’ve got to look at things that are going to help our students learn cognitively and be able to use their minds and not crawl around and jump over logs and rocks. It’s something that was overlooked; it was an oversight. I’m not too sure what happened there, but I think that needs to be addressed not only at East Three elementary but also with schools as we’re looking at developing them.

As we’re going through ECE, I didn’t see much here for the culture component. As the Minister knows, our languages are a dying breed right now, especially in some of the regions they’re getting worse, but we’re not seeing anything in terms of culture, tradition, developing space so that we can highlight some of the history. Not only that, maybe adding to the museums that we have, looking at ways we can be innovative in getting our culture revitalized that will help promote our languages as well.

So, just a few things of concern there within this department. It’s such a big department that has a lot of responsibility and the education and the wellness and livelihood of our people of the Northwest Territories, and we’re only investing 2.36 percent of this capital budget into seeing what we can do for our residents.

So, obviously some concerns, but on a plus side I guess it’s nice to see that we’re taking alternative energy options for some of the schools with the pellet boilers and those kind of things, but still a lot of concern, and I think for me a lot of them need to be addressed in years to come.

So, just a few comments, some concerns. In terms of the playground at East Three elementary, I know there was a lot of parents that are pretty, I wouldn’t even say concerned, I guess shake their heads and don’t understand how we cannot put a playground in front of the school when we have all these elementary schools out there. They can only play tag and hide and seek. You can’t even go hiding in that thing, so you can’t even play hide and seek. So I think that’s something that needs to be addressed with the playground at the East Three elementary.

So, a few concerns there, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. What the Member has brought up are a lot of points that obviously have been brought to our attention as well. Due to the fact we are investing just over $6.5 million in capital projects, there may not be much out of a $125 million budget, but at the same time we spend well over $290 million over a five-year period when it comes to schools and different educational assets in the Northwest Territories.

Yes, we need to focus on the small communities, as the Member alluded to, small community schools. We’ve done that. There is Lutselk’e school, there is Charles Tetcho School renovation, Colville Lake. We want to do more, but it’s a funding crunch, and all the departments have their own wishes and we do too. We put in as much as we could and this is what we got out of the actual budget.

When it comes to family units, there has been an agreement in place. I totally agree with the

Member; there are three different campuses, 33 communities, 23 community learning centres. How can we best utilize the campuses in the Northwest Territories? There are some campuses that may be a bit empty and some are full. Those are areas that we are currently capturing with the Board of Governors of Aurora College, how to best utilize our spaces, our program delivery as well. Those are ongoing discussions that we are currently having as part of the Aurora College long-term plans, how to deal these areas.

East Three School, the dental office, I’ll get Ms. Allison to maybe elaborate on that a bit. The playground has been brought to our attention as well. It was part of the planning process when the East Three School came up. The JK came after that, so we’ll deal with the JK infrastructure at that level, but this is an area that my department has been working with PWS when we were developing the planning study. Members ask that future plan studies should be capturing these kinds of initiatives. We are hearing the Member and they should be captured. Those are some of the areas that will be discussed as well.

The culture components, the museum will obviously take over the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat, and we have a couple of staff moving to the main floor, working with regional and community levels as to how we can best deliver programs when it comes to the cultural components, or even revitalizing our language. The space is required to do so. So I am glad Members are referring to that where the museum will be the host of that for the regional perspective. We are moving forward on that, but I will get Ms. Allison on the dental office, I guess, with the E3 School.

I will turn it over to Ms. Allison.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Allison.