Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Chair, I've had the opportunity to go back and forth with the parent advisory committee on this one, and we did advise that we have located a couple of pots within the federal government that we're currently trying to follow up on to see if they're ones that we can tap into outside of this traditional capital funding process, to see if we can push this project along. And we'll be sure to continue to see what we can find and report back to the parent advisory committee. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister. I hope that we do have some school boards listening so that they can also reach out. I know there are many schools in our fine capital that are looking for projects like this, including in YK1. So it's more of a comment than a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Next on my list I got is Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So my first question is a follow-up to my colleague from Frame Lake's questions about capital related to Aurora College and the polytechnic transformation.

You mentioned that the facility's master plan, projects have been included in the government's 20-year capital plan but that you're mainly looking to the federal government, if I understand it correctly, to fund those projects. So how is it decided which projects identified in the facility's master plan will come to the GNWT for funding, such as the student housing unit, and which must be funded by the federal government? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we have -- I don't think it's a secret to anybody in this room that we have quite a huge need when it comes to infrastructure across the Northwest Territories and across every single department. A lot of our infrastructure in the territory was built around the same timeframe, and so a lot of it ends up coming due around the same timeframe. And so the demands on our dollars for infrastructure are quite large and traditionally education facilities, be it our JK to 12 education facilities, are the responsibility of the provincial or territorial government. That said, there are pots that provinces and territories can dip into for post-secondary institutions. And so in order to maximize the amount of dollars that we have to spend on our education facilities, it makes the most sense for us to do our best and due diligence to try to invest our dollars in our JK to 12 and see what other dollars we can attract to the territory from the federal government for -- is there anything you want to add to that one?

Mr. Chair, may I pass to the deputy minister? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So can the Minister or her staff clarify in that process of working things out with the Aurora College board, did you ask them to identify projects like under a certain funding limit, like within a certain funding range? Okay, we could afford to do things around this range, what have you got for us, or did you ask them to identify projects based on the level of urgency? I'm just wondering how this particular project was identified as something that we should do now and not something that we should look to the federal government to fund or put off until later. I'm interested in how the process of prioritization led to this particular project this year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, for the operational details of how we collect information from education bodies and Aurora College and etcetera, I would like the opportunity to pass to the assistant deputy minister, please.

Thank you. I'll go to the ADM.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. So it sounds like this one was identified based on the severity of the impact or the need, which is good to hear.

I want to turn to another item on this -- well, actually, items that are not on the list. But in general in terms of capital dollars that are allocated to education authorities for projects, what efforts has the Minister taken to ensure that we can align education authority buildings, assets, with ECE's own capital standards in terms of how regularly technical assessments are carried out, you know, the kinds of investments that are made into asset management, and how things are decided when they need to be repaired or replaced. So what efforts are being made to ensure that we're aligning education authority management of assets with ECE's own capital standards? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is a -- so this bleeds into Infrastructure as well. So the assets are actually owned and maintained by the Department of Infrastructure and then we work together on ensuring that they are cared for and the communication between education bodies and infrastructure and ECE is all a bit of a team approach to it. So we do have a list of schools across the territory and we do have -- and I know -- what does FCI stand for, sorry? Thank you. Facility condition index. This is the problem when you speak in acronyms all the time. Sometimes you forget what they mean.

So we have a facilities condition index, and every single school in the Northwest Territories has some rating numbers that go with them. So how we prioritize schools that are kind of next up in the list is using those numbers, but there's also other pieces that factor into that. Things happen throughout the year. We know that there is also wear and tear on schools from events that occur and climate change as well. So while we have our facility condition index, we also have other factors that will move a school up and down on the list and prioritize others, obviously with accessibility as well depending on the student body. There are different factors like that that might determine what school's up next. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And certainly this is a new area for me as well, but can the Minister confirm whether or not education authorities are actually aligned with ECE's own capital standards or they're not yet. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So our capital standards were updated in 2020. A lot of our school buildings predate 2020. And our capital standards apply to new builds in the territory that will follow that standard but it doesn't mean that all of a sudden we -- we would never be able to, for example, tear down every school in the territory and start over. So we have to start from somewhere. So the schools that have been built post 2020 would follow those capital standards. Thank you.