Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I Had a Million Dollars was a song sung by the Barenaked Ladies. However, I’m not going to say anything to that, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, if I had a million dollars I would pursue with the people of Colville Lake and this government to develop a strong partnership with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to begin planning to build a new school. …(inaudible)…,says the movie. If you build it, they will come.
This issue is so important that it was raised with the Premier and the Cabinet on September 24thin meetings with SSI and our government. The people came, they met, and now they wait to see if this partnership can become a reality.
Colville Lake is a traditional community, and as we know, both sizes of these traditional communities have very limited infrastructure, such as the basic essentials of a health centre without a full-time nurse, or having fly-in RCMP services, and they have one room with multi-grade classrooms together with only partitions separating them. There is no standard-size school gym. In this day and age, it’s unbelievable with all the money we spent on other infrastructures that we cannot get a school together for Colville Lake.
Over the years Colville Lake has made great strides to have their students begin and finish and to graduate at home. I have a note that says there were 10 students who dropped out of school this year because there’s no high school program in Colville Lake.
It’s been noted, for the record, that the people in Colville Lake built their own airport, a gold standard airport. In fact, the Premier’s Award of Excellence awarded this community and the people and this government. Partnerships work. It’s been proven and there’s solid evidence. This award was given because of the partnership between this government and the Colville Lake people.
To establish a partnership that works, partners needs to sit down together, and the Colville Lake people want this…
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted