Thank you very much. I just want to follow up with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about capitalizing the needs of schools in a couple of communities in my riding, most particularly the Charles Yohin School in Fort Liard and the Charles Tetcho in Trout Lake. I’d like to ask the Minister what steps are necessary in order to move from the capital needs assessment portion of the planning of these schools and get these schools incorporated into our five-year capital plan.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With all of the capital infrastructure, the process of going through the budget planning process to deal with capital, and we do have an area of technical or evaluation of the schools. So we do, upon requests, evaluation of the schools. For particular schools, whether it be Trout Lake or Liard and other areas of infrastructure that’s badly needed in the community or in need of repair, then we do an analysis in those areas and we’ve done those in the Member’s riding as well. So when it comes to the capital planning process, these items will be discussed for sure. Mahsi.
Thank you very much. I’d like to work with the department as we move towards the capital planning process in the springtime come May and June. I was just asking about getting the process on the capital plan. I know that in other departments they use planning studies. So I would like to start with that. When can we look at doing planning studies for these two schools in order to put an amount on them? Thank you.
I need to find out from my department exactly where the status is on those two particular schools that the Member is referring to, particularly on the planning studies, if they’ve done one already; if not, then when is that going to be happening. So I can get back to the Member on those two schools that he’s referring to. Mahsi.
Thank you very much. So the next step is to raise that in the capital planning. As well, I think the key objective here is to move it from the capital needs assessment to the capital planning studies, and also I’d like to invite the Minister to do a tour of the riding so that he can see for himself the needs of these schools and the amount of children that are in them. As well, what efforts have been done to date in these two communities in looking at and assessing the schools? Thank you.
We’ve had consultants work on various school projects, whether it be evaluation, the status of each school, and there’s been a highlight of minor or major repairs that need to be initiated. There’s been some minor capital infrastructure that has been identified for these two schools. So it is currently in the works, and in moving forward, if there are other issues that we need to discuss, then the capital plan process will be the opportune time. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche. Okay. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
