Jackson Lafferty

Once we identify assessment that needs to take place in that particular school, again, DEA -- sorry, DEC -- we need to work with and to identify as a capital project as well, either for next year or the following year. It depends on the space required.

I realize that, visiting the school, the space was maxed out. That is a concern to me, as well, having visited the school. We’ll continue to work with the DEC on identifying what is a priority for the community of Colville Lake and for our Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. It was a spectacular trip to the Sahtu region and we did visit the school as well, toured the school there. Yes, it is a small school for the size of the population, but at the same time we are discussing, as part of the capital planning process, we need to reassess, we need to re-evaluate the school status. There may be other schools similar to that, but those are ongoing discussions that we do have with the district education authorities or council. It will be at their request, as well, if they are concerned or they want to have an extension on their school or a new...

Mr. Speaker, I did touch on that. That is our vision with the federal Minister for the territorial jurisdictions. We see this coming. Definitely that is an area of vision that we have in our target, is to establish an Athabasca University type here in the Northwest Territories and supporting the other two Nunavut and Yukon campuses as well. Mr. Speaker, those are the ongoing discussions that we are having.

I think we definitely will see a light because what we are discussing here, there is a university of the Arctic funding flowing through Saskatchewan. Of course, yes, the money has been scaled...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we have to keep in mind that we are delivering university courses right now. We currently deliver degree programs and masters programs at current stages right now, but we are exploring further to delivering more of university-type programs to our schools, into our institutions, the three main campuses that we have. I just recently met with my colleagues in Nunavut, in the Yukon, on exploring options and how it’s going to look, a university of the Arctic. We realize that more work needs to take place.

At the same time, I just recently met with Minister...

Mr. Speaker, that is what we are doing this fall. We are consulting with various aboriginal groups, leaders, the school board members, the MLAs of the particular ridings, highlighting what we have found, what we have heard from the communities, what we have heard from the committee members, what we have heard from their representatives.

Mr. Speaker, those will be laid out in the communities and I think to honour that, it will certainly be a greater improvement into our programming. Basically what I am looking at is building on our strength. We do have an education system that is very successful...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when we talk about graduates, over the years there has been a substantial improvement in our graduates, whether it be aboriginal or non-aboriginal students, for the Northwest Territories. It’s been increasing every year. The Member is asking if those graduates are true graduates and the status of the diploma. These graduates do write the departmental exams through the Alberta education system. We use their curriculum as well. There are certain standards that have to be met, criteria that has to be met and based on that, if they pass the final examination, then...

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I have Mark Aiken to my left, director of legislation, and Bronwyn Watters, deputy minister of Justice. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. The purpose of Bill 3, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2010, is to amend various statutes of the Northwest Territories for which minor changes are proposed or errors or inconsistencies have been identified.

Each amendment included in the bill had to meet the following criteria:

it must not be controversial;

it must not involve the spending of public funds;

it must not prejudicially affect rights;

it must not create a new offence or subject a new class of persons to an existing offence.

Departments responsible for the various statutes being amended have reviewed and...

Part of the discussion that we’ve had in the community was also... At times it is the wish of the community not to have running water, but at the same time we are pursuing with the school to put in a piping system for running water because we feel that we need to have students healthy in the school so the germs don’t spread around. So, Mr. Speaker, we are committing $225,000 to deal with that matter. At the same time we need to look forward at how we can work with the community on expansion down the road. So, Mr. Speaker, again, we need to work with the DEC and DEA at the community level. They...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I will be more than happy to present the current status of what has been happening to the standing committee. They can certainly share with the general public as well. We can certainly do that, too, and put it on our website. Just updating on where we have been, Mr. Speaker, this is all preliminary at this point. I am not sure how far we will be, but certainly what we have talked about is still in the preliminary stages. We need to develop a business case scenario between the three jurisdictional territorial governments. We will be meeting with the federal Minister as we...