Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Committee, before we continue, I’d ask Members to please check their phones and their iPads. I’m hearing some background noise and ringing. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister for that information. I’m glad to see an expansion of that. It seems like there’s an obvious need for it and I appreciate that. On the other hand, I see a reduction in the grants to early childhood

programs of almost $800,000 and I’m wondering why the drop there. I know the Minister is aware that Members put this as a very, very high priority, this area for investment, and yet we seem to be going the opposite direction in terms of our net investments in early childhood.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Mr. Lovely.

Thank you, Mr. Lovely. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s always hard to penetrate the smoke and mirrors, as I’ve said before, but I appreciate that. I’m glad to hear it’s staying within early childhood.

I’d like to follow up on my colleague’s mention of the healthy food for children and youth and just ask the Minister if he’s been aware of this excess of tens of thousands of goose eggs in the Beau-Del and the potential availability of them for consumption by residents, and the geese for that matter. A wildlife management problem where there are excess birds and eggs that we could be taking advantage of. Is he aware of this and would he work with the Minister of ENR to see if this source of food can get into our communities, into our schools? This is an income support thing. I won’t repeat it when we get there but I’ll mention it now. I see this as a real opportunity, a significant food source that happens to be local and extra nutritious.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Any opportunity that arises, obviously, we like to take advantage of it. We’ve heard about this particular area, whether it be a traditional food that’s available. Again, it would have to be at the discretion of the schools to allow that into their facility. We are, as I stated, working very closely with BDEC, the Beaufort-Delta Education Council, if this is something that they want to explore and have that available to our students. This is just recent news to us, so it is being discussed at BDEC level with my officials. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that and I will look forward to what comes out of that.

My last note is I see we are not really making much adjustment to the arts investment in the grants and contributions. That is just something I really support. I think we have gradually done a better job since the early days of the 16th Assembly, but I

think there is more room for achievement here and investment. It has a very well-demonstrated impact on local economies and helping people realize their full potential, obviously, their personal and community identities and cultural aspects. I just raise that as a comment. I would love to see those adjusted, as most of the items are on this page, recognizing increasing costs and so on. I will leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I will treat that last statement as a comment. I will continue on with grants, contributions and transfers. I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have probably about four major items that I want to talk to the department about.

The first one has to do with the college contribution to the department and the contribution to our small communities. You know that I want to thank the Minister for two things. First, to conducting the needs assessment in the Sahtu region for our students, the number one issue of that needs assessment has to deal with the literacy issue in our region by the younger people. Listening to them on CBC Radio and reading the article in the Globe and Mail, there is a pretty good indication as to how we can overcome our literacy issue in our small communities. The First Nations in Ontario have done some good work, and it also needs to be looked at through our Aurora College contribution.

The other one is to deal with the Sahtu technical institute and the study that has been happening. I look forward to the end of this month. We are on deadline with time frames that should be coming out and going forward into the planning process. Thanks to the Minister for moving that through the various stages of the planning of the Sahtu feasibility study and looking to see if that is something that we could implement in the Sahtu region in the future, because this will help with our Aurora College facilities in our small communities.

The second point I would like to ask the Minister is in regards to the Healthy Children Initiative, healthy food for children and youth. A lot of communities rely on that, especially for the morning breakfast programs. There are kids that take advantage of that and they have very good people working in those programs. I want to ask the Minister, are we the sole providers of that program, the healthy breakfast program in our small communities? I know there was some cause to see how much money these programs are valued at and then we have extra dollars from industry or other organizations to support our programs in the

school. I want to ask who our funding partners are, or is this solely a GNWT initiative? If we are, is that enough in regards to healthy foods for our children in our schools?

I want to talk about the school in Colville Lake. I know the Minister is looking at the school and its programming, the programs that are being taught in Colville Lake. There is a school there that is a log building that was constructed in 1991 and there was a modular classroom added in 2006. These buildings are from the days of Little House on the Prairie where you have one classroom and four or five different grades. Teachers are doing their best to educate the children. There are 50-some-odd students, maybe more, in these classrooms.

I have visited Colville Lake several times. I have noted the school atmosphere and the challenge that the teachers have in the buildings. There are several deficiencies noted in these school buildings, such as lacking storage space or there is lots of noise. With kindergarten to grade 4 or 5, there is just… How do you keep the little kindergarten or Grade 1 students quiet? So, there is lots of noise. There are partitions that are separating a Grade 3 and Grade 4 and kindergarten/Grade 1, so it’s not a very conducive learning environment in Colville Lake.

I want to ask the Minister, due to this typical learning environment that Colville Lake has had ever since they had schooling in Colville Lake, the community is really appreciative of the work that has been done; however, they are now asking if the department is willing to consider an idea to have the community be partners in building the new school for them. They have the means; they have the companies; they have the resources. Looking at the department they say, we know you don’t have the money. They always say…[English translation not provided.] They are saying that we have partners, we have companies. Can we build a school for you? According to GNWT specs, can we do this for you? Are you willing to look and sit down with us? Look at a new concept, a new idea. Otherwise we are just putting a bandage on an old issue.

As much as I appreciate the Minister going to battle with us and the department trying to fix the school up, fix it so that it is conducive to an educational environment. It is not doing what we want to do. So the leadership, through an e-mail, is asking if the department will look at a meeting where we can get together and say, is this possible, can we do this, what are our challenges, what are we up against? Can we build it and can the government lease it off us? Build it to their specs. The people in Colville Lake are asking for that and they want to provide the proper place to learn.

I know the department has made trips into the Sahtu. Can the department and staff come to

Colville Lake and look at the school environment? Take a visit and say, yes, maybe we should talk. I am asking for that. They want to know if they can do that. They also see that there are other schools that are getting the attention of…other communities are getting the attention of new schools, so I want to ask the Minister these questions. I know this is an O and M budget because this section deals with programs. School programs are very difficult to have in a community like Colville Lake where recently they have been graduating Grade 12 students there, so I want to raise this concern with the Minister. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. When I speak to the college, obviously we work closely with that community’s learning centre so we have them in the communities, most of the communities. Yes, the Member is quite correct about…and we’ve been supportive along the way on the needs assessment in the Sahtu region and it’s going really well. We have all the stakeholders involved, all the parties from the Sahtu region and various industry members. So, there is a lot of discussion and opportunity for us to move forward on this, and obviously this will possibly lead to a Sahtu institutional discussion that the Member is referring to. There is a current feasibility study and there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in this area. We’re interested in how that’s going to pan out. My department is going to be working very closely with the Sahtu region on this particular matter.

Another area, obviously, is literacy. I totally agree with the Member that literacy should be a prime focus in the small, isolated communities, and we are doing that right now. Obviously, we need to do more in this area. So, that will be my push from my department’s perspective.

The Healthy Food Initiative, there are various parties involved in this, various departments. There’s MACA, there’s Health and Social Services. But primarily for schools, we contribute $650,000 towards the schools and they manage the funding. The funding should be going directly to the students for their programming, for their breakfast program. We’ve heard over and over that this is a need, so we are pursuing this now. We’re getting a lot of positive feedback from the community schools that they very much appreciate the money that’s been identified for this, because a lot of our students are going to school on an empty stomach and we don’t want that. So we are doing the best we can to support those students.

The Colville Lake programming that the Member is referring to, we’ve looked at the building, as well, and obviously my department will be very interested in what the community has to offer. It’s not only

Colville but there are other communities that also showed interest potentially looking at these opportunities of possibly building and then leasing back. But it is an area that our government has to look at where we’re going against a borrowing limit but how can we best approach it, because we don’t have the capital infrastructure to date to deal with all those communities that want to build, whether it be the college or the schools or health centres in our communities. I’ll be interested in what the community has to offer and bring it back to my Cabinet colleagues and have some discussion on what’s the best approach. So we’re quite open to those ideas as well. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Committee, again, we’re on page 66, education and culture, grants, contributions and transfers, total grants and contributions, $209.153 million. Is committee agreed?

Thank you, committee. Committee, page 69, education and culture, active positions, information item. Any questions? Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have questions here with regards to the increase in positions in the regional offices. I see that it increases from nine to 12 positions. Could I hear what those three positions are, please, and what communities they’re in? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Those three positions are two linguists within the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat and one registrar, teacher certification is from headquarters to the Beaufort-Delta and also the South Slave region.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That’s good.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, again, page 69, education and culture, active positions, information item. Any questions?