Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Education regarding a concern about the Minister's apparent plan to terminate the Keewatin teacher education project after its second year. This is the most successful program ever to involve aboriginal people in the teacher education program. It does not make sense to terminate the program if the government is really committed to decentralization. The first priority should be to hold on to what works. My question is, can the Minister assure the House that the Keewatin teacher education project will not be terminated without a full evaluation of the project and of the demand for further community-based teacher education in the Keewatin? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask, as a supplementary to the Minister, if he will be able to give a response to this House before the end of the session.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Education. Mr. Speaker, I have grave concerns about the decision of the Department of Education to refuse the education leave benefit to students who are eligible to join the Keewatin teacher education project in its second year. These students are eligible because they have obtained courses toward their teaching diplomas before the projects start. Yet now they are being refused a benefit that the other students in the program receive and that would allow them to train to be teachers without causing their families to suffer significant loss of income. Surely they are the exact type of students that this project was intended to attract.

Mr. Speaker, my question is, was the Minister aware that 12 students in the Keewatin, who may join the Keewatin teacher education project in its second year, are being refused the education leave benefit that is received by other students in the same program? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker and honourable Members. These students have been eligible for an education leave benefit so that they can attend teacher training without their families suffering the full loss of their income. The benefit was added to their student financial assistance so that they received about 80 per cent of what they earned in the schools. This allowed them to train to be teachers and still continue to feed their families.

Mr. Speaker, it now turns out that the Department of Education has decided that it will not provide this benefit to any more students who want to take teacher education. In the Keewatin, there are 12 students who could join the teacher education project in its second year to get their diploma. The reason why they are eligible to join the second year is they had begun to study to become teachers before the project even started. The department now tells them that they will not receive the benefit to help support their families that the other students in the project receive. This decision defeats the purpose of the projects. These are obviously motivated people with experience who want to teach, and they are being penalized for their initiative.

Mr. Speaker, the department must change its position and allow these students to train to be teachers; to deny them the benefit is a short-term answer. We will all lose in the long run. The Northwest Territories will have to continue to import teachers, and the students, who need aboriginal teachers who care about their culture, language and community, will take second place again.

The department must reconsider its plans to terminate the Keewatin project after its second year. The department has tried field projects before to involve more aboriginal people in teacher training. In 1981 and 1986 both attempts failed. This is a project that is working and will save the department money in the long run. The government has announced that it is committed to decentralization, allowing programs to be delivered closer to the people they serve. This is a chance to achieve what the government says it wants by holding on to something that works. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I seek unanimous consent to continue with my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are three field-based teacher education projects operating right now within the Northwest Territories. These projects offer an alternative to attending college for two years in Iqaluit or Fort Smith or taking correspondence courses over a significant period of time. The teacher education projects offer two-year programs in the Keewatin Region, in Arviat, Baker Lake and Rankin Inlet, and in Hay River and Rae-Edzo.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the intention of these two-year projects was to attract aboriginal students, especially those with experience in the schools, to teach education while offering training within their home communities. There is a high teacher turnover in the Northwest Territories and not enough aboriginal teachers, but many people who would like to become teachers simply cannot leave their homes, families and jobs for the time it takes to attend college in Fort Smith or Iqaluit, and it is not acceptable for the children of the Northwest Territories to be forced to wait until aboriginal people who would be good teachers take all of their correspondence courses after hours.

Mr. Speaker, I am told that 10 students have graduated from the Rae-Edzo project and that two are presently attending at Hay River. I am pleased to inform the House that the teacher education program within the Keewatin communities has been certainly the most successful ever in the Territories in terms of training the most aboriginal people to teach within their communities. The project has been greeted with enthusiasm, and there has been a great demand for courses. At present, there are 25 students attending the program full time, and approximately 10 take courses on a part-time basis. There are also 12 more students who are eligible to join the program for its second year.

But, Mr. Speaker, this brings me to an area of great concern. Many of the students who have enroled in the community teacher education projects were already employed as assistants within the school system and so would bring valuable experience to a teaching position. These students have been eligible for...

I would like to deal with that tomorrow.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Since the last sifting of the Legislative Assembly, I have taken the opportunity to be in my riding, meeting and talking to people in Baker Lake and Arviat. Within the last three months, I have had the pleasure of visiting Arviat three times, and all three times I have stayed with a gentleman by the name of Solomon Kugak, and, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say that he is here with us today.

Despite the wonderful company of my host, he lives in one of the earlier prefabricated three-bedroom houses which were built in the early to mid-1960s. I used to live in one of these houses when I was growing up in Baker Lake. At that time, they were one of the better houses, but by today's standards they should be condemned. Yet people continue to live in them because of the shortage of houses in the Territories. These houses have no running water; therefore, no flush toilets, only honeybuckets. They have been rehabbed so many times that the layers of panelling are probably as thick as the insulation inside the walls.

The ceiling of Solomon's house is very low, and he uses one of the bedrooms as an office. Like many dart players, he has a dart board in the room. The ceiling is so low that when I throw my darts, one out of five darts will hit the shade of his light bulb which is taped to the ceiling; taped to the ceiling because the shade is a piece of cardboard. The tiles which make up the ceiling are failing apart. This leaves big patches in the ceiling where you can see the insulation of the ceiling.

This is far from the worst scenario in the NWT, because there are other people in other communities which live in shacks or tents. But to experience such conditions again after so many years makes me think that there is more which can be done for our people in the NWT, from my corner of the world. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had not really thought of anything to say, but just hearing the comments that are being made, and because I am affected, as a representative of people who are close to the boundary line, and realizing the history that Mr. Lewis has just given us, that there is general support for division, Whether the boundary is here or there is a question that will affect the native people more than it will affect any other people. And again, because this is a political boundary line, I had tried to say in the discussions we had a couple of weeks ago that the only reason why there is a boundary being created is because governments that do exist live by boundaries. Aboriginal people have never really lived by boundaries before, and now they are being forced to decide on a boundary line which they cannot agree on. Because it is a boundary line that the government has to live by.

I do not know what the solution would be to this, because we are in general agreement that there should be division of the Territories. Maybe there could be a sub-agreement the aboriginal people could live by, indicating to each other that this boundary is a boundary set by the government but that it is not necessarily a boundary that we, as aboriginal people, will live by. Whether that is a solution, I do not know. Because whether we divide or not and use this boundary or another boundary, it is still a boundary that is set by the federal government and is followed by political groups. But I believe for native people, I do not think they have to live by a boundary. They could live traditionally with their inherent right to live as they have lived before, within a public government system, with their own agreement.

There are various comments being made on how Nunavut Members are doing their constituency work in regard to the plebiscite. I think it was an agreement because we were able to work together on what we would be doing as far as our constituents are concerned. Basically, for me it is just an information process. My stance on this will be to inform the people that basically the plebiscite is on the boundary, and whether you vote "Yes" or "No" to that is entirely up to you. How Members, as Ernie just stated, will be affected by the boundary and on which side they will be going on -- I think we could say that you are only going to be as strong or as good as the people who are elected.

It was also stated that we still have a long way to go. I think the people in the East are beginning to realize that we do have a long way to go, but what we want to do is to be able to decide which direction we in the East are going to take without having to think about the West. The West can decide on the direction they would like to go, without the interference of the people from the East.

I do not know how we could solve the problem of the boundary. I think the way around that is for the aboriginal groups who live close to the boundary line to agree to say that they will not live by the boundary line, that they will live their traditional lives the way they always have; and the line that has been created is merely a line which the two governments of the East and the West will live by. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.