Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Of other expenses, I am assuming, Mr. Chairman, travel is $177,000; materials and supplies is $126,000; purchased services is $168,000; utilities is $526,000; contract services is $3.091 million; fees and payments is $17.116 million; and other expenses of $4.274 million; computer hardware and software is $212,000.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, that’s something that is completely open to DEAs. For instance, in K to 3 the DEA could decide to do the entire program in an aboriginal language. It could be five days a week. The flexibility is there within our system to allow a significant amount of aboriginal language programming. It’s a challenge for a lot of districts though to find adequate resources, to find people who can teach and speak the language as well. That does become a big problem. Then we need to make sure that our communities are being supported.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have heard often from Mr. Pokiak and his concerns about the school in Tuk. I know it was one of the first issues he raised with me. I am aware of the Member’s concerns and I will do my best to work with him and the community to see what we can do. We face though some significant challenges in terms of the needs we have out there for schools where there is significant overcrowding or structural safety issues we have to deal with. That all has to be taken into account as we figure out the mix for each year. I will continue to discuss the issue with Mr. Pokiak and we...

Madam Chair, the aboriginal numbers will include children in all communities. So it doesn't exclude any schools. But we can break it down by community, we can provide it by region, we do it by regional centres, we do it by smaller communities. So we have a broad range of statistical numbers that we're quite prepared to provide Members. We have a bi-annual report that we put out that puts a lot of this information in graphs and the numbers available for the members of the public. The next one is due in the next couple of months. The deputy is telling me he's not going to get out until the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had mentioned earlier to Mr. Delorey that Yellowknife Catholic Schools had a good example that I discussed with the Chairs of other boards, for a facility that they had managed to find partnerships to develop it. I don't think anybody is denying the importance of trades training for young people in the North, particularly given our opportunities in the resource development field over the next several years. So I would dearly love to be able to say that we had some money in the budget to improve what we have for trades training.

I guess I also need to say that the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no doubt that Mr. Yakeleya would like to see it under capital acquisitions, but unfortunately the only place we are liable to find funding for it is on page 9-19 under community museums, which will indicate the level of support that we might be able to find…

---Laughter

…which, unfortunately, is not going to be great. I would agree with the Member that is it quite a nice little museum, and there is some money under community museums on page 9-19, and there is $27,000, as well, for community museums for improvements to buildings. This is application-based and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the department is going to be offering through the career centre over the next couple of days, some seminars to make sure that more people in the area are aware of what sorts of opportunities for training are going to be available in the oil and gas field in the next little while. There is very shortly a significant training proposal for federal monies that’s going to be made that includes a partnership that is made up of a number of aboriginal groups, including the Deh Cho First Nations, industry and this government to try and make sure that we can...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the computer chargeback, there are eleven systems that are maintained, so that is the chargeback that we pay for the maintenance of those systems basically. Mr. Chairman, I am advised too that that includes contract payments for software support. When you have software you often have to pay the manufacturer for support as well, so that is included in there. But this is all basically related to the 11 different systems, like the CMAS, the student financial assistance programs, the income support programs. There are a number of different computer systems that we...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in terms of total funding in 2002-2003, we provided school boards with almost $6.5 million in total towards aboriginal language and culture programs. As I said, there hasn’t been a lot of consistency in how that has been spent, and there has been some concern about whether or not we can demonstrate to this Assembly that it has been spent in ways that Members would consider appropriate. Knowing that, I’ve talked to the Chairs of the boards and advised them that we need to work on a directive to make sure that the spending is able to be demonstrated to the...

Mr. Chairman, if experience serves me, I will have no doubt that there will be a significant amount of involvement by Yellowknife Members as this decision works forward. We are going to have to try to find some way to work collaboratively to deal with the needs of our constituents.