Caroline Cochrane

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 27(2) of the Official Languages Act, I wish to table the following document entitled "2017-2018 Annual Report on the Official Languages." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the government response that we tabled yesterday, it was stated that the advisory committee to the regional board will be set up and an advisory committee, or senate, or whatever we call it, will also be set up. One is to have regional representations from all of the regions in the Northwest Territories. The other one is to actually provide expert advice to the administrator on specifics regarding the post-secondary education. Those two boards, committees, are very critical, so they will be one of the first priorities. We did commit to that at least in the first two years, but I am hoping...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The territorial-wide vision is actually a political decision that will be made, but it's really important; we actually want the associate deputy minister of post-secondary renewal to be with us during that process because that person has to understand really clearly what the vision is, because the next step from that is to be able to do the post-secondary vision based off of the territorial vision. So it's a political decision, but that person will be helping to facilitate it.

Mr. Speaker, our cultures and languages are the foundation of our work in Education, Culture and Employment. When our languages and cultures are strong, our people are strong and our work is much more successful. I am pleased to report that we are seeing progress in our efforts to retain, preserve, and promote Northwest Territories languages and cultures.

We are currently finalizing a multi-year action plan as a companion piece to the Strong Cultures, Strong Territory Framework. The action plan contains 25 categories of actions needed to ensure the Government of the Northwest Territories is...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When this was first brought to us as Members of the Legislative Assembly, I did talk a little bit more to the Member from Kam Lake, who was bringing this forward. At that time, my biggest concern was around the money. Within this, what will be coming up later, is that introducing that, if this goes through, that there would be an extra $30,000 that can be utilized a year before the election or during the year of the election. I have always been about fairness and I have tried to maintain that fairness throughout all of my work here at the Legislative Assembly. This doesn...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We don't have a specific deadline at this point, because we are just reviewing the report. Within this projected budget that we are just presenting now, the capital, we are looking at the planning study.

We do need to get that parent feedback. We need to have it defined, this is where we are putting it, recognizing that not everybody is going to be happy, but the public needs to know, because the results of that will implement the planning that needs to go forward, the drafting, et cetera. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have been assured by my department that, actually, our training is meeting the needs of employees, but I also take heed, and I think that we need to challenge that because the audit is saying that we need to do better with our training.

I am committed to actually looking at the employees that are taking that training and actually doing a survey of them and asking them personally, "Is that training enough? What would you like to see implemented?"

I will take that on, and depending on what the employees say, we will adjust our training. Like I said earlier, we want to provide the best service...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point, we are still in the process of doing the geotechnical report. I believe we have gotten it, but I haven't reviewed it yet. It is in our technical division at this point to look at it.

Once we decide on it, we will be meeting with the school board, YK1. We will be meeting with them first and working with them, and because it is a school that had a bit of contention, we probably will have a public meeting to relay the results to the parents of that school. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize Josee Clermont, who is the executive director of College nordique. It's great that we work together and I am looking forward to further partnerships.

I also want to recognize, if they are still up there, we should have a group of grade six students from William McDonald coming to learn about our consensus government, so I'm excited to have them here as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the Echo Dene School will be getting a major renovation of six stations to meet the National Building Code of Canada, as well as to enhance the home economics program offered at the school. Proper lighting will need to be planned and installed, which may require a new ceiling. The current soundproofing and insulation are likely insufficient for the redesigned space, so we will need to redo that. In a building of this age, abatement might be an issue, so we are looking at doing electrical and probably a new ceiling. Thank you, Mr. Chair.