Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, post-secondary education in the Northwest Territories is very important to me. I believe it is a way we can bring transformational change to the Northwest Territories and give a real future for our residents, and invest in our young people, allowing them to pursue opportunities here at home in the North and not have to leave to the South.

I've been quite dismayed to learn from constituents and students at the college that they were abruptly told the Social Work Diploma program has been cut from Aurora College and will be phased out by 2019. This has caused a great deal of upset amongst the current students and people who were looking forward to this opportunity.

Social work is, of course, a very important way to support northern communities. It is often difficult to bring a Northern perspective to that work when you learn to do it in a southern institution. The realities of working in a northern jurisdiction, in isolated and remote communities and, of course, with many Indigenous nations here in the North, require a specialized and focused training, something that Aurora College was offering.

This change comes at a time when we have not yet seen the new strategic plan for Aurora College that the Minister has committed to revealing this year. Yet we've seen several other strategic decisions seemingly made ahead of this strategy, a new multi-million-dollar heavy equipment operators' training facility at Fort Smith, and reorganizing the college under labour development, which ties into the Skills 4 Success Plan. We are making strategic decisions, Mr. Speaker, and the Minister is making those strategic decisions and giving more direction to the college, yet we still do not have this plan.

When these decisions are rolled out, seemingly as and when suits the college or the department, it causes a great deal of consternation for students. We owe it to them to give them certainty about their future and so they clearly understand why these decisions are being made. I implore the Minister to speed up this work and ensure that the strategic plan and the future of Aurora College is known well ahead in advance for Northerners so they can start investing and preparing their future opportunities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.