Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to make that commitment. But, fortunately, there are mechanisms in place where schools are in situations where they have extraordinary enrolment compared to what they are funded for. And the school, if it meets certain criteria, if there's a certain increase in their student population, they can apply to ECE to receive additional funding to cover that, recognizing that there are extraordinary circumstances. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So then if schools are coming back to their MLAs and saying that they've seen significant differences in enrolments, would those schools not then qualify for that and so can we not make that commitment that schools will see stability in their funding so that they're not expected to educate students without the funding for those students? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If schools meet the criteria, then there shouldn't be an issue. But there is a criteria. It is not just anecdotal evidence that there's changes in student population. And in places like Yellowknife, there are a number of different schools, a number of different school boards so there is movement between those schools as well. Some might see increases, some might see decreases. But it's not a change perhaps in the net population of students. Overall, we've seen about a .4 percent decrease in the numbers across the territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the 16 to 1 ratio is a minimum, and it's a legislated number. We actually fund to about 12.8 to 1. And that is just including teachers, program supports, staff. So it is basically instructional staff. So that number is a minimum, and we already exceed that number. And I will be the first to say there's never enough money for education; there's never enough teachers to go around, and so I appreciate the Member's comment and the school board's comments. But unfortunately, we've talked a lot about competing needs today, and we've talked about our overall debt, and our efforts to ensure that we are supporting every area to the greatest extent possible. And so that's what we're working on, and we'll be going through the budget in this sitting, and I'm happy to dig deep into the details of the school funding formula at that time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Final supplementary, Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister's comments, and I think it's important that on this side of the House, we continue to talk about the things we would like to see more money go into because those are the things that are important to the people we serve.

That being said, I know that education is top of mind for many Northerners, if not most Northerners. And I'm wondering if the Minister would be willing to revisit the education funding formula in advance of the modernization of the Education Act in order to address things like inflation and increased needs for inclusive schooling. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the funding formula is quite complex, and the funding that is provided to education bodies is complex in general. There's actually additional funding available for inclusive schooling on an application basis. And I've seen those applications come across my desk, and we've been approved.

We are always looking at the funding formula. There have been some improvements made to the formula during this Assembly. I expect to see some more made before the end of this Assembly. But as for a wholesale revision, I can't commit to that given that the Education Act is become modernized, and it would take a lot of effort to redo the entire funding formula and then redo it again once we finalize that Education Act. So while I can commit to continuous improvements, I can't commitment to a wholesale revision. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Colleagues, our time for oral questions has expired. Written questions. Returns to written questions. Replies to Commissioner's address. Petitions. Tabling of documents. Minister responsible for Finance.