Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Monfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is the same answer for a year. So what is the plan if there is no money? What if the federal government says there is no money, so what is the plan after this?

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Well, you know, as I mentioned, when we were in Ottawa we had some really good discussions for the Frank Channel Bridge in speaking with the transport Minister. As for the plans, right now we're looking at getting costs escalations for the project. And if we don't get that then perhaps that we need to come back to Cabinet. That's the only alternative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the enterprise information management division is responsible for the record management, and DIMS is the platform that is used. There is a specialized required for the records management hence that's why it's sitting in Infrastructure. The EIM has strong working relationship related to the governance with the chief information officer and the Department of Finance. So the CIO has delegated responsibility for information management from the Financial Admin Act to the enterprise information management. So EIM develops policies and provides advice and assistance due to the expertise around records management.

Mr. Speaker, this is a government-wide program which is focused on managing information, assets, and government DIMS. Manages both the electronic and the physical records as well that the GNWT centre holds. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I, once upon a time, used to work at the Department of Finance, I had the privilege of using DIMS. I adored DIMS. It makes it easier to finds documents and store them and share them with your colleagues. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering what departments still need to be loaded on to the DIMS system in order to access it as part of their regular workspace? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you'll be happy to know that as of January 2022, the Education, Culture and Employment has begun the rollout, and we're working with Health and Social Services to be able to assist them in implementing the DIMS program. So Health and Social Services are looking at migrating two of their divisions as a starting point. So, I mean, this is great. We're starting to move all of our different departments into one integrated system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's another reason why DIMS is really important, and it's for access to information and privacy protection as well. And the ATIPP Act is also rolled into kind of being able to use that system as well. And so especially given that, you know, digital technology changes so quickly and the need for us to keep up is so relevant in today's day and age. I'm wondering what is the actual timeline for all departments to be absolutely on DIMS, integrated into it, given that I believe it's coming up four or five years since I had the privilege of sitting as a public servant in the Department of Finance? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like I mentioned, Education, Culture and Employment is planning deployment in 2023 for four more divisions. So we'll work with them to see what additional supports we can provide through Infrastructure to help the other divisions as well. And I mentioned Health and Social Services has indicated two more divisions that could go forward. But we'll need to see how else we can support them to get to the other units that we need to combine as a whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is it reasonable to expect for this to be done before the end of the 19th Assembly? Thank you.

No, but I want to say that the department can sometimes be challenged with being able to dedicate some time, our resource to implement DIMS. You know, as the Member knows, the two biggest departments - Department of Health and Education, Culture and Employment - are two big departments that we need to implement into the whole of a DIMS program. So ECE has begun staging the deployment since January, and it's based on some of the readiness and the approval of their operational classification systems. Health and Social Services, as I mentioned, we're getting closer. I just -- no, I don't think we're going to get there by the end of this session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To get this done right, that's what it takes. Thanks.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on Francophone education in the NWT. And probably to the Minister's and my own relief, I am going to be doing them in English.

So Ecole Allain St-Cyr in Yellowknife is at 90 percent capacity with a trend of increasing enrolment fueled by GNWT supported immigration and retention of students. Can the Minister tell us what triggers planning for a new or expanded school and whether discussions have started with the Commission Scolaire Francophone Territories du Nord-Ouest? Merci, Monsieur le President.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for ECE.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And in a way, these are champagne problems as they say. We have been working on increasing immigration and so we've seen those numbers go up. As well earlier in this government, we introduced some more liberal regulations, expanding access to French first language education to non-rights holders so this is sort of a situation of our own making. And in terms of the conversations about facilities for CSFTNO, I wouldn't say they've started, I would say they've never ended. They've been ongoing for many, many years.

The way that our process works is that each year school boards provide ECE with their requested capital projects. Sometimes it is something small, like blinds for classrooms, and sometimes it is a school. And so we started having those discussions this year with the CSFTNO. And I think that both us and the school board have been waiting on those census numbers to indicate how many rights holders there are in the territory so that we can have an informed discussion.

I will say that I have spoken to students at Ecole Boreale in Hay River. They asked me about a gym, and I wish I had better news for them but the fact is it is difficult to get new infrastructure. We have school standards and when we build new infrastructure or we renovate, we do it according to those standards. But in the territory, we have 49 schools and we look at each of those schools. They're assessed by the Department of Infrastructure, and they're assigned a rating based on their condition. Unfortunately for Ecole Boreale -- or sorry, maybe I'll just leave it at that. I'm sort of getting off track here, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that because he's of course getting into my second question. The problems in Hay River are different and, in some ways, very similar, though, to what Yellowknife was like before the expansion of Ecole Allain St-Cyr. Ecole Boreale has been forced to keep its senior students in a portable for 13 years. Count it - 13 years. And there are continuing issues with heating, water, and sewer services. The students also need to compete for gym time with the nearby public school.

Can the Minister tell us what he is going to do with regard to Francophone senior students in giving them a permanent home and a real gym for Ecole Boreale? Merci, Monsieur le President.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And those portables, they are old. I believe they were supposed to be in place for two or three years but here we are 13 years later. And we have had issues with them. There's ongoing maintenance issues that we've been dealing with. So we would all love to see those replaced. Unfortunately, like I said, we have 49 schools. Many of them are in worse condition than the facilities in Hay River. And so it's difficult to make a case to, you know, renovate or build new facilities to replace facilities that are in better shape than other facilities around the territory.

So I'm afraid it's not the best news. But there are joint use agreements between the Hay River DEA and the CSFTNO that speak to the use of gyms. And it is definitely not an ideal situation. I wish we had a gym for Ecole Boreale but we are doing the best we can. I think that if the community was open to looking at school swaps, that might be an option, but that is a difficult topic to broach in Hay River. And at some point, we may get to the point where we really need to start looking at those types of angles. Thank you.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. And I've got some of the numbers that he was talking about here. As I understand it, there are 840 students in Yellowknife and 135 in Hay River that are rights holders for French first language education. And that doesn't include immigrants, other non-rights holders that are already in the system, and of course there's caps on all of that. But if all these students and their parents exercised their constitutionally-protected rights, we'd be in real trouble in terms of meeting their educational needs given current facilities.

So can the Minister explain what he's going to do -- what plan is there for this contingency if everybody exercised their rights and especially given that we've got some out of date and unnecessary enrolment caps? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, I thought I had dealt with this issue a few years ago. I spent a lot of time personally meeting with the chair of the CSFTNO about the regulations. And we settled on some updated regulations that, you know, are by no means perfect but seemed to address a lot of the outstanding issues that we were facing, both the school board and the GNWT. Since we recently received those census numbers, we can now look at how to move forward in terms of the regulations, the capacity, and all of those types of questions. We have not had time to do that given how recently those census numbers came out and everything else that's going on. But that will be the starting-point for any future conversations. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. And I do want to acknowledge that this Minister has taken a constructive approach with CSFTNO, from everything I've heard so I want to give him credit for that. And I understand now that we've got these census numbers, which is good, but I can't even count or remember the number of times GNWT's been taken to court and lost over Francophone education rights in the NWT over the last 15 years.

So can the Minister tell us how he intends to keep GNWT out of courts over constitutionally-protected Francophone education rights? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.