Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Minister stated, it might not be in the life of this four-year term that we actually get it done. However, it is realistic to expect that we cannot hold back our people and say that we will not provide the services. The idea of building on campuses, that is what we have been talking about since I was the Minister of Education, since Minister Moses was the education Minister. We are not ripping it apart and starting from scratch; we are building on the strengths that we already have.

Then, Madam Chair, the third point is about what is the use of focusing on post-secondary when we need to focus on our secondary schools. Madam Chair, with due respect, when the Member was the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, he knew there were issues, as well. He didn't just focus on the secondary students. He was the beginning of bringing in junior kindergarten. If that Member was only thinking about the services in place now, he would not have thought about early childhood intervention.

We need to be holistic, Madam Chair. We need to think about early childhood development, having our children ready with developmental skills when they get to school, giving better programming from JK until 12. We are working on that now and, Madam Chair, also having opportunities and hope for our youth so that they cannot access every single post-secondary option in the world, but we have specialized programming in the North that is quality programming. Aurora College already has some programming that is actually proven to be quality. Our nursing programming, everyone I talk to is ranting about that program. Why would we stop? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Member for Monfwi.

Masi, Madam Chair. We have had tremendously successful programs over the years, and we continue to still see them. Great work has been done in the past. We are continuing to carry that forward. With this particular area, I obviously would like to know if there has been an actual survey of the students across the Northwest Territories on this initiative, if there is a favourable response from the public. I am not just talking about organizations; I am talking about the people of the North, if they are in favour of creating a university in Yellowknife.

We have three campuses. The Minister alluded to how we are building on top of the three campuses. Not if we are creating this university stand-alone campus and having three additional existing campuses. The social work program has been taken away from us. The recreation program is another one. These are just some of the programs that have been successful in the past, but there has been a lack of interest. We should have a clear idea why there is a lack of interest from the general public of the Northwest Territories. A lot of students are going south. We all know that. I went south for university. My kids did, too. If we go around the room here, a lot of our kids have gone off to southern institutions, for various reasons. One of them is the choice that they have.

We will have, eventually, according to the Minister and the Premier, a stand-alone campus here in Yellowknife, a university type, and the three campuses will still continue, but we are not really expanding on the existing campuses that we have, in my view, anyways, if we are strictly focusing on this polytechnic university over the next six years. Who knows? It could be the next 10 years, 15 years. We do not know because we want this to be a perfect institution in the Northwest Territories, in Yellowknife, Madam Chair.

I am not sure what else I can say about this particular area, but one of our prime focuses should be our students in secondary, giving them more opportunities for them to graduate grade 12 and even further, and give them options if they are going to attend our campuses here in the Northwest Territories or south, and building up on the three main campuses and 21 learning centres across the Northwest Territories. That is my view, and I am still questioning this very initiative, this mandate. We have raised that issue before, but obviously, a majority rules. It is here before us, and so we will be discussing it further. Just more of a comment, Madam Chair, at this point. Masi.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Are there any further questions? Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I just want to go on record as strongly supporting this initiative. It is something that I raised in my first term, and I continue to believe this is the direction that we can and should be moving in. I think this is part of building a knowledge economy for the Northwest Territories. There are a lot of universities doing work here now. Laurier, Wilfred Laurier, has an office here in Yellowknife. We should be finding ways to build on those partnerships and including that as part of the polytechnic work that we can and should be doing in the future.

Our family, we have two kids who did go away to university. It would be nice if, when they come back here, they could decide that they want to be teachers, professionals, researchers at a university here. We have got to give more options to our kids who did take SFA, student financial assistance, so that, when they come back here, they have more options to get involved in post-secondary education themselves.

What I want to ask the Premier here is: as part of this plan, there are lots of lessons, too, that we can learn from Yukon College. Yukon College is going to become a university this year, and so I know that there is this advisory committee. I am not going to get the right name of it. I think there is representation on there from Yukon College. What sort of lessons can we expect to learn from Yukon College, that we can help out with the establishment of our polytechnic here? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Madam Premier.

Madam Chair, what I will do is pass it over to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to answer the question about lessons from the Yukon College. I would also like him to clarify, if possible. At no time have I understood when I was the Minister and this is a new Minister: is the university going to be in Yellowknife? I would like that to be clarified. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The university, as I see it, will be stretched across the entire territory, and I have a vision of it being in 33 communities. We do not need buildings physically right next to each other to call it a campus. Everywhere the university has a presence is part of that university. The model of a main campus is an outdated model. It is not something that I am focusing on in this Assembly. I was just down in Smith. They have a beautiful campus down there. It is huge. We need to fill it up. We have a campus here that needs some work, so we are going to have to do something about that. We have a beautiful campus in Inuvik. Again, we have to fill it up. There are learning centres in most communities. Maybe we can have them in all communities. We have got to think big.

I apologize. I know this is Member O'Reilly's time. The question is about Yukon College and lessons learned. The academic advisory council, it is still relatively young. I think there has only been the one meeting so far, unless there has been something very recently, but they are heavy hitters at these universities. There are presidents of universities, not just someone who works at a very low level. They are the top people, and they have a lot to share. They were chosen because of those reasons, that they have transformed into polytechnic universities, that they have a strong Indigenous component to them. I cannot give the Member the exact lessons that we are going to learn. I look forward to briefing committee at some point when people find time. I know it has been a struggle to get time to do those kind of things. At that point, I will be happy to ask the staff, who really can get into the details of that question, and they can relay it to the Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don't mind the Minister using my time to talk about good things. The one component, though, that I do not really see here, it is probably being worked on, is the need to get private donations, as well. Look, one of the discoverers of diamonds made the single-largest-ever donation to a university in Canada, $50 million to UBC; he also gave $32 million to Quest University, $5 million to Vancouver Aquarium, $12 million to Simon Fraser, $11 million to the University of British Columbia again. These are people we also have to approach so that they can leave a legacy here in the Northwest Territories. I am just wondering what kind of work we have done to look at philanthropy and partnerships in terms of building a polytechnic here. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will again ask the health Minister to expand on my answer, but I do want to state and I am not sure if I have told him yet, so I might be telling him, is that one of the diamond mines has already approached us. While I was the Minister, I was not adverse. I will take the support where we need it. The smart thing is to do that. That is the knowledge economy, the money we can bring in. On that, I will pass it over and let the health Minister expand if he so wishes, if the chair allows. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

---Laughter

Right now, we are in the phase where we are strengthening the foundation of the college, so that type of work, while there have been conversations, we have not aggressively been pursuing that, just because of where we are and that we do not have a regional needs assessment done to know what we are going to look like. We do not have our infrastructure assessment done. It is hard to go out and ask for money for a particular project when we do not have a particular project that we can show. That being said, there are the conversations that the Premier had in her former post, and there are other discussions that are going on. There is interest, and what I am looking forward to is promoting this transformation not just within the territory and getting people excited about it but around the country so that we grow that interest and we get that attention from different groups. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we have to make the most of it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Mahsi cho, Madam Chair. I won't say too much about this, but I think I really need to get this off my chest. I am really, really so supportive. It is good to see that we are moving forward with education and advancing our education and talking about the knowledge economy and attracting investments. This is a good opportunity from that aspect. The only reason I am kind of conflicted about this, again, to what the Member for Monfwi said, a lot of our small communities, a lot of our students from small communities, I feel like they are going to be on the outside looking in. That, for me, is going to be hard. I think we need to do more from an education point of view to help transition our students into a polytechnic.

I know that other universities down south, back in the day, they had transitioning programs. They have a lot of Indigenous programs to transition a lot of Indigenous students into their universities and stuff. I am hoping to see some of that here to have that. Something close to home would be good instead of sending your students down south. This is something that would be close to home. Again, this is good. All round for me, this is good, but the only thing I am struggling with is just getting our students from the small communities in. I guess I had a question for Madam Premier, if there's any plans to having transition programs for small community students?

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Some of the things, I am going to try and be sensitive, but our youth are already looking on the outside looking in with what they have now. At least, this is going to give them, hopefully, some hope. We are working. We are not ignoring the children in JK to 12. We are working with them as well. A Pathways program is reaching out to children when they are in grade seven to try to give them options. The child and youth mental health workers going in four to nine to try to give supports for wellness. One other thing we haven't talked about is that in the last Assembly when I was the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, I also had concerns for our smallest communities. During my term, I made sure that our smallest communities, there should not be a school with only one teacher left in our NWT. During my term, I made sure that our smallest schools had at least two teachers in them to ensure that those children had the best chance possible at the time. Appreciate the comments. We cannot leave anyone behind is the goal. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

I am happy to see this news. I am hoping it is done in a very constructive way. Yeah, it is good to hear about the endowment fund. Hopefully, we see something like that. I guess my final comment is, if I ever win the lottery, I will chip in a little bit into that. That is all I have.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess when this first came up and there was talk about the foundational review, I was under the impression that it would be to take a look at Aurora College and make that stronger. Then, for some reason, it morphed into a university, and I am not sure why. I wasn't happy with that at first. Now I have looked at it. I have looked at it over time, and I look back at my life, I guess, because I did go south. I am proud to say I graduated. I went to my grade one to 13 here in the Northwest Territories, and then, I went south for nine years to school. Part of that was in Calgary, but the other part was in Butte, Montana, which is a small place. I went and we lived there for four years, and the Minister of education was part of that journey. It was interesting. There were a lot of people from Canada going there, people that I actually worked with, and that is why I am encouraging you to go there.

When we say that this may force our residents or our children or the young people to be on the outside looking in, but at least they get to look, and they can see what is possible. That is what we have to give them. We have to give them hope. The toughest part of school is getting in. Once you are in there, it is not that bad. We have to give them that hope. It has to come sooner or later, and it may as well be us that start it, or at least try to get close to completion. I think we are headed in the right direction. While we are probably going to be squabbling over head office. Who gets a new camp, possibly, and all that? I think we are probably going to see Fort Smith continue to be the focal centre with respect to administration and head offices and that. I am just hoping what we do is we don't hire people, "Okay. You are in charge of it, but you get to live in Yellowknife." We don't need that. We need people who are willing to be on the ground where the students are because that is what it is about. If you are not connecting with the students and you are in charge, there's a problem with that.

There is a lot of work to be done. We have been taking a bit of heat on it. At the end of the day, it is a priority of this Assembly. It is your guys' mandate. You guys pick the team that you want to lead it, and we have got to back you on it, and that is all there is to it. I guess there is no question. Just a comment. Thank you.