Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the MLA for Kam Lake I think touched on majority of what I wanted to ensure was clear which, namely, is that this is, again, voting to take $5 million out a budget for a department takes 5 plus million dollars out of the budget for the department. Period. There is no guarantee as to whether or not Aurora College will or will not come back with a plan that any of us find palatable. There is no guarantee that ECE will be able to find other staff since they will not have the $5 million allocated to this initiative -- that they will have other staff to support developing a plan that any of us find palatable. What we are just doing is taking this money away out of protest.

So I understand -- I understand the idea that there's a protest desire -- and, again, Madam Chair, I think many of us have said that we were also quite frustrated with how this came to pass. Unfortunately, Madam Chair, this motion has come by surprise to everyone in Cabinet. We are not well placed, being surprised, to be able to do any kind of analysis of whether or where money could be found to pay for staff in small communities on notice. We're not, being surprised, well placed to say whether or how we could find money on the interim to develop an alternative plan. Not well placed to say if there's an opportunity to restrict funding that could allow that work to continue to keep the $5 million. There are these other tools. There may be these other ways. We didn't know this was coming. So we can scramble to try to get our staff who are sitting back and listening to all of us to give us quick analysis, what can we do, other tools, other things, what can we do. But, Madam Chair, being surprised on the floor like this doesn't give us the ability to utilize the public service to support the desires of the Assembly, to support the small communities and support community learning centres, which all of us have said on many occasions, both one on one with Members as well as here, that this is what we all want.

So Madam Chair, there is a budgeting process that we go through in this building where chair of AOC and myself will sit down where we discuss concerns, we can discuss deletions, we can discuss additions, we can discuss changes, we can discuss policy changes. That has been the process now that I've been a part of for 11 budgets, including this one. It has been often ripe with many different types of topics, including things like this, where there is a dissatisfaction. And ultimately by that process, we come forward and at the end of it all, in the last while, you would see the Minister of Finance stand up and make a number of commitments, changes, both deletions, additions, policy changes, that reflect desires of this Assembly.

So, Madam Chair, I would urge our colleagues, all of colleagues in this House, to consider using that process, one that allows us to have some time to analyze what impacts there are so that we can make changes that are meaningful, so that we can effect programs in a reasonable way, so that we can ensure that our staff are supported to make these changes and that we're not being asked to do them on the fly not knowing necessarily what those impacts are, how they impact people, real people, and -- but actually trying to find a way to really try and find a solution.

So there's a meeting next week that Member from Kam Lake has mentioned with Aurora College. It gives us time from finance to look at, you know, where the money is and what it's actually being spent on for community learning centres and ultimately find a path forward so that communities with community learning centres can use those facilities, get students into them, keep their staff, and see those seeds of success. Thank you, Madam Chair.