This is page numbers 5161 - 5202 of the Hansard for the 18th Assembly, 3rd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was going. View the webstream of the day's session.

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Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the NWT and, in particular, the Nahendeh, many residents require academic upgrading, even after finishing school. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment: how is the department working with Aurora College to meet the needs of adult learners in the region? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are two ways to meet the needs of adult learners that can be done. If people are looking to do upgrading, they can do that, actually, by addressing their home community school. Often they will take students who are over 21. That is common within the smaller communities. As well, within community learning centres, we try to upgrade their credentials. Through Aurora College specifically, we offer two upgradings. One is through the Occupations and College Access Program, and the other one is the University and College Access Program. Those are two that pertain specifically to the college administrating them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

I am looking more specifically at the small communities in the Nahendeh, so again, could the Minister tell us: could existing schools be used to deliver upgrading where there is no community learning centre available?

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Yes, definitely. Schools can actually offer upgrading if they have the capacity to do so. Some of the schools don't have the higher learning grades. That has been addressed over the years with the Northern Distance Learning. There is funding, actually, to provide through schools if they want to address the higher grades, 10, 11, and 12. There is funding through Education to provide for that. We do try to support students as much as possible, and using the existing schools, as well as community learning centres, is something that we need to do as much as possible.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

It's great to talk about learning centres, but if we don't have them in the small communities, it doesn't really help. Could the Minister advise: in the future, will learning centres be expanded into these small communities and all communities in the Northwest Territories?

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

The community learning centres is an area that I can't, right at this point, say is going to be expanded into all communities. Right now, they are offered in 21 of the communities. We need to do a whole review of the community learning centres, and not only on where they are. That is something that I could commit to looking at, where they are located, but also the services that they are providing within that. That is part of the polytechnic review, the process that we are working on, so we are a little bit ahead of the game today to say that we will expand it when we are trying to figure out what exactly we are doing and how we can strengthen those community learning centres today.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and again, I would like to thank the Minister for the information provided here today. At the end of the day, though, we want to help our students who are graduating. This is my understanding: students attending access programs at Aurora College are able to access student financial assistance. This is counted against the maximum allowable semesters limit under SFA. Can the Minister explain why this is, and has ECE considered not counting these access programs against the student's maximum allowable limit of SFA? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Currently, the Education Act actually does define what can be provided through student financial assistance. It is legislated, so it is difficult. We need to look at it and actually change the legislation, which is a lot more difficult than changing policies. Will we look at it? Absolutely. It is part of the process that we need to look at within the college. The difference, though, is that normal upgrading courses can be addressed within their communities, through schools and the community learning centres, which we only have 21 of, I recognize.

The access programs, really, are not a general upgrading where you get grade 12. The access programs are really looking at the programs that you need to get into college or university, so it is a different type of upgrading. I do have concerns with it, as well, and so I have stated that we will be looking at it as we move forward with the whole polytechnic university and how we are providing services to the public. I think it is an area that needs to be looked at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Colleagues, for visitors in the gallery, as well, I forgot to mention Gerry Burla, who is with us here today. He is also part of the Legislative Librarians here at the Legislative Assembly. Welcome to our Assembly. Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not particularly like Facebook. There is too much gossip and negativity on there for my liking, but I check it so that I can keep abreast of what is going on around town and in the Northwest Territories. However, Mr. Speaker, after this week, I might have to swear off Facebook for good. When I opened it up the other day, the first thing in my feed was a picture of the inside of the outhouse at the GNWT-owned north-of-60 visitors centre. It was not pretty, and I will spare everyone the gruesome details.

This has come up before. I have seen articles in the News/North about it. I know that other Members have asked questions about it. This is a perennial issue. It goes on and on for years, particularly at the border when the ice roads are in and all of the big trucks start coming from the south. It is where the truckers stop, and, you know, they don't take it easy on that bathroom, Mr. Speaker, and it is not a great way to introduce visitors to the Northwest Territories. I have some questions for the Minister of ITI on this.

I apologize to the Pages who came here hoping to see some political discourse, and I'm talking about outhouses, but that is the way it is sometimes. I have to ask the Minister: how are ITI's roadside outhouses maintained during the winter months? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Wally Schumann

Wally Schumann Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unlike the summer park season, when we have contractors who look after these facilities on a daily basis, in the wintertime, we send our contractor out once a month to look after these facilities. Then, when conditions like this happen, of course, we dispatch the contractor out there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Once a month just isn't enough. As you know, it is winter, it is cold, things freeze, and they pile up, and I am not quite sure how they are going to deal with this. What is going to be done in the short term to fix this situation and ensure that these outhouses are kept clean this winter?

Wally Schumann

Wally Schumann Hay River South

I can reassure the Member that we have already sent a contractor out there to clean this up. This has come up in this Assembly every year at this time of year, and we have to make it quite clear. This is a difficult situation for us. These things are isolated and remote. There is no power at these locations, and we spend a significant amount of money on this. We spend roughly $50,000 annually to clean these things up in the off-season, and we could probably spend that a week, if we had to really get after this thing, but we don't have the money to do this. The department is certainly going to be having a look at what we need to do. We are doing a review right now of our strategic plan on parks, and I am sure that this is going to be a topic of discussion.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

It sounds like there is a review happening. There will probably be a report that comes out of it; maybe an action plan, maybe a framework, who knows? This has been ongoing for years and years and years, so there must be some sort of plan. I know that there are some bright people working in that department, so what is the long-term plan to ensure that these outhouses remain clean?

Wally Schumann

Wally Schumann Hay River South

As I have said, we have sent someone out there to clean out this facility right now, and the Member is clearly right. We have 8,000 loads going to the mine site this year, so there are 16,000 extra trucks of traffic going just past that facility alone. Just think about that, if that was your washroom, the amount of toilet paper you have to supply.

We are looking at this thing. This is clearly an issue that is not going to go away unless we do something about it, but as I said, these things are located in locations where there is no access to power. We have to have a serious look at how we are going to be able to rectify this problem. Do we put in rotating porta-potties? Do we look at some type of antifreeze? Do we put bigger tanks in there? Is propane heat an option? These are the types of things that we are going to have to have a look at, or maybe, in this particular case, if Members really get on side and really push and help me access some funding from the Finance Minister, maybe we run a power line from the Alberta section to the border.

Certainly, with help of committee and the Members across the House, we can maybe rectify this problem, but we are looking at all of these alternatives. As I have said, we are working on our winter strategy and what we are going to do. This is going to be a conversation, not with just this facility, but with a number of facilities, and it is a challenging thing.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

R.J. Simpson

R.J. Simpson Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I understand the challenge. There is not even cell service out at the border. There is no power; there is no heat; there are no gas lines. I know that, in Alberta, they have gas lines, they have power, and so they have nice heated washrooms and don't run into these issues. Has the Minister put together an estimate on how much it would cost to install some heated washrooms or some type of infrastructure to avoid this? Do we have numbers that I can at least bring back to my constituents? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Wally Schumann

Wally Schumann Hay River South

Roughly, from the department's numbers that I got from them, it costs $70,000 to construct just a regular outhouse. I suspect, for us to do a heated facility, as we have talked about in this House here and the challenges in the location that it is, it would probably be double that. We would be spending something like $140,000, not counting to run power out to this type of facility. We will work through this through our winter strategy and try to come up with something here before next winter about how we can try to rectify this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Kieron Testart

Kieron Testart Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today, I spoke of the directive for the enrolment of students in French language education programs, which, I would submit, is a hangover from a previous time when Ottawa was calling the shots. This seems to be only present in the three territories. Can the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment give us a compelling reason why this is important public policy that must be maintained? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackson Lafferty

Masi. Minister of Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Caroline Cochrane

Caroline Cochrane Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With only having a few minutes to think on my feet what the question is, I guess the first thing that pops into my head as a compelling argument is that we only have two schools in the whole of the Northwest Territories that offer French immersion as a language. That is Hay River and in Yellowknife, and we have to make sure that the numbers don't go over 85 percent, otherwise we are looking at new schools, and we don't have enough money to add more schools, other than what we already have in our current plan. I guess, thinking on my feet, the first argument that comes to my head is making sure that it doesn't go over the 85 percent capacity, which is when we have to ensure that we are looking at new builds. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.