Debates of May 29, 2012 (day 5)

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Mr. Hawkins.

Well, I’m going to have to take a stab because my earpiece doesn’t work and I can’t hear anybody over there. All I heard was something about it showing up and not said. That’s not the people providing the rebut, but I mean, quite frankly I keep thinking I’m hearing that it just shows up as income on page 7-26 but it’s just treated as money that disappears.

I would say from a good accounting practice I think my point still should stand and I think any accountant would be quite concerned that it sort of disappears into general revenue if it’s just clawed back. This is more than an administrative exercise. This is a financial exercise taken out of people’s budgets. Whether you’re MLAs buying computers or getting support, it comes off your budget. If your department of whatever, whether you’re Health or Education or MACA or ITI, whatever the case may be, your money is being taken out of the global budget and it should show up as revenue somewhere because it’s treated as income on this page and I would say, but it doesn’t look like it shows up as income. I’m just not sure what to say other than that. The income should show up as a line item clearly somewhere else. People need to know where the money is going. It just seems odd that…They didn’t say the words “trust me,” but if you read between the lines it’s like, don’t worry, we’ve taken care of it. What are they going to do to articulate it somewhere on a budget line item that shows that they’ve captured $18 million-plus?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Maybe you should advise… Oh, the clerk is looking after your earpiece item. Mr. Abernethy, I think the question is where do these numbers show up elsewhere in the budget. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Government of the Northwest Territories it shows up in every department under the TSC chargeback line that we talked about previously. The Member is correct; there might be some errors in wording on this page. This isn’t really income. This is a chargeback or – what was the other word we used – a cost recovery within the Government of the Northwest Territories. Revenue is usually money coming into the government that would go to general revenues. There’s no money going to general revenues here. It’s a reallocation of funds. It’s a chargeback. It’s a cost recovery within the government itself. So every department shows what their cost is and that money comes out of their budget and goes into TSC where they provide the services, and we provide a comprehensive list of the actuals and main estimates in every budget so people know what the costs of services are within the government to the government.

I thank you to the staff for somehow miraculously getting this thing working. The fact is, the money is taken out of my budget, by way of example, and so it’s aggregated out through the normal process but it shows up here as income. I’m not going to argue semantics here, but the fact its income should show up somewhere other than on one particular page such as 7-26. It should show up as a revenue line within the department’s revenue and it doesn’t show up there. I did look for it. Unless, of course, I missed it. But I see great money rolled in under electrical permits, boiler, gas, but I’m not here to discuss page 7-9. The fact is it doesn’t even show up under the general revenue through that. It’s got to show up somewhere.

Any accountant will tell you that you can’t just keep taking money, show your consolidated amount. I’m not talking about the individual department lines. All I was trying to point out is all department lines have a TSC chargeback in one form or another. So here it shows the consolidated amount of all of those chargebacks, so where does the money go? That question then leads into why doesn’t it show up under revenue stream?

Do we not have someone with accounting experience or an expert willing to make the commitment and explain why it can just be deducted but not show up as being inputted under the revenue? Because it would go back into revenues.

I’m not sure how to answer the question. It’s not revenue. It’s never been revenue. It’s a chargeback. It’s a reallocation of funds. It’s all internal to government. It’s not new money coming into the government, which is what revenue technically is. We provide service within government to government and there’s a cost to that from each department. Computers that the Legislative Assembly buys and has serviced through TSC is covered under the $324,000 budget that’s identified here on this page as well as on their individual line item. It’s not revenue. I don’t know what else to say.

If the Minister wants to be evasive on the fact or use semantics, call it whatever he feels like that makes him happy. This number of $18-plus million has to show up somewhere. It doesn’t just show up as a mysterious number, because it’s allocated out to the departments through normal budgeting. Then it’s being clawed back for reasons we all know why, because of services. It’s being brought into the Department of Public Works through the TSE. Now it just looks like it sits in the Department TSE as a chargeback and it doesn’t show it goes anywhere. I’m asking where does it go after it’s being highlighted as it returns to…

Now, we all know this is a virtual world but, I mean, for sake of simplicity, is money is being taken out of the Legislative Assembly account, moves over to the Public Works account, but, I mean, it doesn’t reflect that under any type of revenue side under Public Works and it should. Because, I mean, it should go somewhere. Because otherwise it looks like they’re building up a huge slush fund. If we add up all these years, someone’s going to ask where’s that money going. That’s the question. Where’s the money going?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Abernethy, maybe we could commit to provide a better explanation. I’m not sure if you have something else that will help us get to the bottom of this. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m happy to have somebody from Finance help explain this to the Member and anybody else who’s interested. The bottom line is it’s not revenue. If you look on the page 7-26, it shows how the dollars are spent: $7.008 million are for salaries of TSE staff, and the other $11 million is for things like the DCN contracts and services and other contracts and contracts we have to provide services within the Government of the Northwest Territories in all communities, all regions. It’s outlined there how the money is spent, but I’m happy to have somebody from Finance provide maybe a plain language explanation of how this is not revenue.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Hawkins.

That’s the kind of answer I’m looking for. Thank you.

Thank you. Anything further on page 7-26? Information item, Technology Service Centre (Chargeback). We will move on. Page 7-27, information item, Technology Service Centre (Chargeback), active positions. Seeing no questions, page 7-28, information item, Public Stores Revolving Fund. Seeing no questions, we will move on to page 7-30, information item, Petroleum Products Revolving Fund. Seeing no questions, I will move on to page 7-31, information item, Petroleum Products Revolving Fund, active positions. Page 7-32, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Page 7-33, information item, work performed on behalf of others, continued.

We will return now to page 7-7, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $93.682 million. Is committee agreed?

Agreed.

Does committee agree we have concluded the Department of Public Works and Services?

Agreed.

Thank you, committee. Thank you, Minister. Thank you to your officials. Sergeant-at-Arms, would you please escort the witnesses from the Chamber?

Alright, committee. We will move on. The next department is Education, section 10. I would like to ask the Minister for Education, Culture and Employment, Minister Lafferty, do you have any opening remarks?

Yes, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I am pleased to present the 2012-13 main estimates for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

The work of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is guided by the department’s strategic plan and the priorities of the 17th Assembly. Our vision is one of northern people leading fulfilled lives and contributing to a strong and prosperous society.

The proposed 2012-13 main estimates for Education, Culture and Employment total $289.107 million. This is an increase of 1 percent over the previous year’s main estimates.

Arts and culture provide Northerners with a foundation for learning and growth and provide us with a strong base on which to build our future. Culture and heritage activities also serve to strengthen and diversify the economy.

In 2012-13 we plan to spend over $6.5 million on culture and heritage programs and services. The budget includes a one-time $520,000 increase to complete repairs to fire damaged sections of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre.

To speak one’s own language provides a sense of identity and belonging. Language activities assist communities to promote and revitalize their culture and language, and in doing so contribute to the community’s economy and well-being.

The department continues to implement the NWT Aboriginal Languages Plan. In 2011-12 the department organized a successful Aboriginal languages symposium which resulted in the development of the plan, and offered two language institute sessions. The department also worked with language communities on a wide variety of activities. The first phase of our consultation on a French Language Strategic Plan is now complete, and in 2012-13 an additional $150,000 is budgeted to provide for the full year cost of the new administrative structure established in 2011-12 for the delivery of French language services.

In 2012-13 the department plans to spend close to $7.5 million on official language programs and services. The government will be considering options for the establishment of an Aboriginal languages secretariat to deliver a broad range of Aboriginal language and cultural activities in the near future.

Amendments to the Official Languages Act to eliminate the Official Languages Board will be proposed. As well, the South Slavey language will be renamed in accordance with the wishes of the Dehcho First Nation. The department will also work with the Executive to review demands on community-based government service centres in order to match service with demand and will continue to work closely with language communities towards their goals and priorities.

Early childhood development programs help children to grow up healthy and ready to learn, reducing the burden on the health, education and justice systems, and help parents to become or stay employed, increasing economic opportunities for many northern families.

In May 2012, ECE, along with the Department of Health and Social Services, met with early childhood providers and stakeholders to obtain their views on the development of child and family resource centres. The results of this consultation and other research are being used to develop an action plan to support pilot programs in two communities in 2012-13, and to use this experience to expand support for centres in other NWT communities. Data from the recently introduced Early Development Instrument will be available to inform the work as the plan is implemented.

In 2012-13 child care benefits under income assistance will be increased and an Early Childhood Action Plan will be finalized. Planned changes to improve the monitoring and inspection of child daycare facilities will be completed. In addition, ECE and the Department of Health and Social Services will renew the Early Childhood Development Framework for Action, a directional GNWT document on early childhood development.

In 2012-13 the department plans to spend $7.3 million on early childhood development programs.

Ensuring the success of all students of our kindergarten to Grade 12 education system is the cornerstone of building a strong and sustainable future for our territory.

Education, Culture and Employment, in partnership with education authorities, is taking action to improve student achievement, performance and graduation rates under the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. Current actions include a new mandatory cultural orientation for teachers, the operation of new community libraries, the hiring of regional literacy coordinators to work with classroom teachers, and the consultations and partnership with Aboriginal leaders under the ASA Education Partnership Declaration signed in 2011 and endorsed by AFN National Grand Chief Mr. Shawn Atleo in 2012.

Madam Chair, in 2012-2013 the department will launch a new kindergarten curriculum, work with education authorities on school plans to improve and report on student achievement, and complete a review of the Aboriginal Language and Culture-based Education Directive. PowerSchool, a new K-12 student information system, will be introduced to schools and parents in the fall of 2012.

In addition, work is underway to develop an Aboriginal Student Achievement implementation and communication plan based on the ASA education plan compiled after extensive community consultation. Plans will examine existing programs and outline further actions to address the four ASA priorities, with a focus on early childhood development. Regular communication will continue with Aboriginal and education leadership in the regions.

In 2012-13 this government will spend over $171 million on school and library programs. Close to $153 million of this amount will be contributed to education authorities for the delivery of K to 12 education.

Post-secondary training and employment programs help adults in the NWT acquire skills, knowledge and abilities necessary to access social and economic opportunities and to contribute to build a strong future for our territory.

The NWT Labour Force Development Framework: People, Partnerships and Possibilities, will guide the work of the department and its training partners in 2012-13. The department will partner with stakeholders to assist Aurora College with aspects of the Adult and Basic Education, or ALBE, Strategy funded by the federal government. Recommendations from the ALBE review will be incorporated into this and other work to improve ALBE programs.

In addition, the department will work with regional training committees to improve supports for those in small communities through the Small Communities Employment Support and other government programs and will work on an accountability framework for the education and training for adults. As well, a new web-based apprenticeship system will be completed.

In 2012-13 the department plans to spend over $46 million on the Advanced Education and Employment Program.

Income security programs exist to assist people to meet basic needs and achieve greater self-reliance at a time when they are most vulnerable.

In 2012-13 the department will continue to promote client participation in productive choices and to refer clients to regional ECE careers services, with a view to investing in client’s independent futures. The department is also participating in developing the GNWT Anti-Poverty Strategy and working on an action plan in response to the recommendations from the Student Financial Assistance Program review.

In 2012-13 the department plans to spend close to $40 million on income security programs. This includes an $817,000 increase for income assistance payments and a $160,000 increase for the administration of social assistance appeal committees.

The job of the department is to support residents in reaching their education, training and employment goals and in making positive choices for themselves and their family. In this way, residents are encouraged to be as self-reliant as possible and to develop a strong identity based on their culture and heritage. Determining the levels of support that help Northerners meet their needs is a challenge that requires constant review.

Based on this Assembly’s vision and goals, we believe we are making the best investments, for the most people, within our fiscal reality.

I would be pleased to answer any questions that Members may have at this time. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Do you have any witnesses you wish to bring into the Chamber? Minister Lafferty.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Is committee agreed to witnesses coming into the House?

Agreed.

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, would you please escort the witnesses in?

Minister Lafferty, would you please introduce your witnesses for the record?

Mahsi, Madam Chair. To my left is Gloria Iatridis, acting deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment; and Mr. Paul Devitt, director of strategic business services. Mahsi.

Thank you. Committee, I will open the floor to general comments on the Department of Education. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Minister and staff for coming before us.

Madam Chair, the points that I want to make are the pace at which we’re educating our children in our small communities. Our communities have a high number of young people and I was in somewhat of shock and dismay when the Alberta test results came out and they showed the education. It gave me a snapshot picture of the education in our smaller communities and in our education system, the department. We are funding our schools, yet we are not as up to par as we think we are.

In our schools I think there’s got to be a definite move from how we do business. We have talked about this issue of social passing for a long, long time. This indicates that it’s definitely not our way of doing business. We’ve got to have something more that tells these students what grade they’re in, that’s the exact grade they’re in. We have a student who’s in Grade 4 or Grade 6 that testing tells us they are at least two grades behind. That, to me, is totally unacceptable within our education system. If something radically needs to happen, then we need to make it happen.

I hope the Minister with his new initiatives that he talked about, that we’re going to see that change. I am not sure if it’s going to take two years or three years. That’s not going to do anything for our students who are graduating this year; they’re in Grade 12. Everybody is planning a graduation ceremony. How many students are going to make it through a post-secondary entrance or how many are going to go back to Aurora College and say I have to upgrade? Is there any tracking within the high school system that says in the Sahtu of the last five years, for example, X-amount of students graduated? How many are in post-secondary institutions? How many are living in communities? How many are working? There are a few exceptional students, despite termination of encouragement from families, who make it on their own. Some of these students even go into upgrading for a year. They go to Edmonton. My nephew went to Hay River to upgrade, working as a student, but upgrading in Hay River. There’s a few of them that make it because they really want to.

We’ve been hearing this for the last four or five years. I’m looking forward to the Minister’s initiatives that we all talked about in closing the gap between our small communities and the larger centres such as Yellowknife and Hay River. The gap is too wide and that’s unacceptable. If you want to see the quality of education, look at our education system in Yellowknife, Hay River, Inuvik and our smaller communities. There is no equality. Look at the grades that they’re testing at. There is no equality. So to say that all students are going to get equal programs, equality in our schools, it’s not there and we’re not doing any justice to the parents or the communities.

So that social program initiative has to go. We have to do something else to replace it. If it’s going to cost money, then that’s what we have to do. Why suffer because it’s going to cost us X amount of millions? Our students are going to be suffering. So that’s a big one on my plate for education.

I like what the Minister did. He went around the region, he talked to the people and he heard in the last Assembly on the initiative of the Aboriginal Achievement and he’s moving that forward, and he started to do some work on the early childhood, and that’s a good thing.

I wanted to talk about the Adult Education Program that we have with Aurora College. I know the federal government has given Aurora College a lot of money under the Literacy Program. I look forward to seeing some future plans as to how these dollars will be rolling out into the communities to improve the literacy of the parents, the people, the kids through Aurora College’s plans.

Madam Chair, when we saw the impacts of development in our region, the Sahtu, the income support recipients going down because of the oil and gas company – Husky Energy came in and did some work in that area – and the level of income support recipients has gone down quite a lot in dollars. So it tells you that if you have income, income support from the oil companies and mining companies and people want to work. We need to help them get away from their dependency on government. Not only the short term and after awhile we need their work, because the season slows, they get back. I wouldn’t mind seeing some results as to the Sahtu prior to the oil companies coming in and after the oil companies come in. I’d like to see that graphed. I’m going to ask for that.

I want to show that we want to work in the Sahtu, but it’s very hard sometimes to break from that dependency. We’ve got them to a point where they expect that it’s almost like their right. You’re going to feed me; you’re going to house me; you’re going to clothe me. We’ve got them to a point where their thinking is very lazy. That’s too bad. Even the little kids now in our schools go to government with their hand out. We’ve done some things that don’t help our people. I want to ask this Minister some of these questions later on.

Overall, he’s got a big department. I haven’t even talked about culture. However, I just wanted to say that he’s got a big budget and some big issues, but more importantly is education. I have a personal stake in this. My little boy is in Grade 5 in Tulita and it’s not the same as a Grade 5 here in Yellowknife. That really ticks me off and I need to know that we need to make some changes. So I’m just showing a little bit of my frustration and my compassion for it. I’ll have more questions later on.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. We have agreed earlier, committee, that we will do responses from the Minister after we’re done with general comments. So I’ll move on to the next person on the list, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m happy to have this opportunity to offer some general comments in response to the Minister’s opening remarks. I want to start by saying the budget is very tight here for this department and a 1 percent increase, this is a major priority for myself and my colleagues. That is a pretty modest increase compared to the demands that we have.

I also agree with the Minister’s remarks on the arts and culture and heritage, and fully recognize the importance of those to both our identity and strengthening our people and also to diversifying and supporting our economy. Those need to be recognized when we’re allocating funds.

I’m glad to see we’re going to recover the fire damage on the culture and heritage centre, and I want to note that the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre is a top-class facility in any forum anywhere in the world and they just celebrated their one millionth visitor. I’d be very curious to know what proportion of visitors to the capital visit our heritage centre. Perhaps the Minister knows that, I don’t know, but this is a major tourism draw and needs to be recognized on that front as well.

The official languages, again I see, you know, a massive review was done by committee and recommendations made. The budget has stayed the same and yet some of our languages are not doing well. So there’s clearly some focus required there.

Probably my most important comment is in the area of early childhood development, which I’ve spoken on before, but I take exception to the Minister’s statement that ensuring the success of all students of our kindergarten to Grade 12 education system is a cornerstone of building a strong and sustainable future for our territory. I think that statement reflects a lack of realization and basically a struggle to retain control in the department, really, by the schools. The biggest cornerstone we have is early childhood development and the biggest part of that is the first three years of life and the gestation period during the prenatal stage. That is an area that is really the purview of Health and Social Services and needs to be recognized, and I think is being recognized by this department. They need to be the lead in that area, although ECE is the overall lead in developing early childhood development, but this needs to be sorted out and it needs to be clear.

I’m extremely disappointed that we’re stuck at $7.3 million, which is no change in funding for early childhood, and in fact it’s a decrease if anything. So extremely disappointed and I think we’re missing the boat here and I will be asking questions on that further.

I’m glad to see that an Early Childhood Action Plan will be finalized. I can only hope that Health and Social Services have had a strong input into that, especially for the zero to three where they would be the lead in designing programs.

We don’t need a renewed Early Childhood Development Framework for Action; we need a revised Early Childhood Development Framework for Action. I’m hoping that is what the Minister means with that statement. As I say, those are the most critical parts that I see for this department.

I didn’t hear the Minister talk about training. Again, especially for the early years, we know that our training is producing substandard early childhood workers. We know that Aurora College is producing graduates that don’t meet the national standards. These are the people we’re putting in charge of the most critical years of our children’s and citizens’ lives. I want to hear from this Minister that that program is being tuned up and improved to meet national standards, as committee has talked about for years now.

Again, what’s contained in the Minister’s remarks shows in this area again a school’s perspective, the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, with a focus on early childhood development. Those programs are already in place and ongoing. They can always benefit from extra support, but again it’s a school’s perspective and it fails to show the recognition of what is now widely understood, that we need a health and social services focus brought into the early years of early childhood development as the priority. That is where we have not been delivering.

I’ll leave it at that. I’m glad to see the other remarks that the Minister made. He mentioned that actions or recommendations from the Student Financial Assistance Program review, I still haven’t seen that. I have again been waiting for that. It seems strange to be talking about acting on that. If there is such a report I’ll look forward to seeing it. Happy to see the Social Assistance Appeals Committee being put in place.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Are there any other Members wishing to make opening comments? Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. [English translation not provided.]

Madam Chair, I’m opening up my comments obviously in my maternal French language, which is a right that we have, as well as many other jurisdictions in Canada. I think that brings to my question that even in the Legislative Assembly we have opportunities to help promote our language. We do not have any translators behind me to do the proper translations in French. I guess that goes without saying that we have opportunities in general with all languages, all our languages that are recognized here in the Territories, and again we know the challenges.

With respect to the Minister’s opening remarks or comments as we go into the budget, obviously this is the second largest budget of our government. I’m pleased to see some direction. I’m pleased to see some direct opportunities in terms of early childhood development, as I mentioned earlier, and also advances especially in the career area.

What I didn’t see in here, and this is probably more a functionality of some of the work that we’ve been doing in the past number of months, work we’ve done with the Auditor General of Canada, work we’ve done in terms of opportunities not only for the Department of Education but for many other departments. The Auditor General of Canada was very specific in nature in providing this government with a lot of guidelines and recommendations in terms of where this department can move forward to better themselves and be a better department for not only themselves but for the people of the Northwest Territories. In the recommendations of the Auditor General is the deployment of measurables, key indicators, dashboard indicators, if you will, in terms of the performance of the department. Given the fact that this was a very extensive process that the Regular Members did do with the Minister, I was a bit, I guess, shocked that that wasn’t part of the new mandate of the department. Trying to prove that the programs that are coming on board over the next couple of years during the life of this Assembly are going to be able to be broadcast in a way that are measured, that the Members here have an opportunity to comment, and at the end of the day that hopefully we have a product, deliverable, for the people of the Northwest Territories.

One of the only things I can comment on, obviously, which is not in here in a general sense, is our achievement tests that our students do write annually, and of course the results that we got of those tests back on February 28th obviously raise a lot of concerns and questions. I’m not going to speak on behalf of the small communities, it was already brought up by Mr. Yakeleya, but other MLAs that wish to from the communities that are rural are more than happy to jump in. My comments will be more so around the issues of Yellowknife because this is where my constituents reside. Keeping that in mind, Mr. Minister, and I know he’s aware that I have children in the system as well, so I’m speaking as a parent as well who’s got two kids in the system. So this is also very close to my heart. As Mr. Yakeleya said, when you have kids in the system you’re a lot more in tune with what’s going on.

The results that we got back on February 28th regarding the Alberta Achievement Tests written by our Grade 3, Grade 6, and Grade 9 students are somewhat puzzling and somewhat troublesome. Albeit that the results from Yellowknife were somewhat higher than the rest of the region, there are still areas of concern. As Mr. Yakeleya has mentioned earlier, there is a gap. There’s even a gap between Yellowknife and Alberta in general, and I think that gap needs to be a high target for this government and this department to find ways to rectify that. When your Grade 9 math results come in at 53 percent where Alberta averages at 73.9 percent, that’s a gap. That means that our Grade 9 math are nowhere near capable of handling the rigours of what’s before them in terms of opportunities and we are narrowing the scope of opportunity of these students as they progress in their final years of secondary and hopefully moving on to post-secondary.

Be that as it may, the other interesting statistic that jumped off is obviously a lot of the percentage of students that are excused is very troublesome. The whole aspect of social passing and promoting a functional grade level equivalent, in my mind, really is not serving the needs of our public. We’re becoming complacent as a society, one in which I would like to see rectified as we move forward over the life of the 17th Assembly. When close to 20 percent of your students are not writing the exam and are being excused because of a social passing, that number is far too large considering the fact that Alberta is only at around 5 percent. We’re four times higher than Alberta. These are alarming statistics that put us and our students really at a disadvantage if we really truly want to see them succeed in careers. Even if it’s going to Aurora College, even if it’s going to tech schools, we’re not doing our students any justice.

My opening comments are more so not what we’ve seen today, which I think are some good stuff in terms of what’s coming down the pipe for the department, but what’s missing is those measureables and how we communicate those measureables not only to the people of the House but to the people of the Northwest Territories, so as parents, as teachers, as administration, we have indicators of how well our kids are doing and not waiting until the Grade 3, Grade 6, Grade 9, and using only our one tool, as far as I’m concerned, as our achievement tests. I’m hoping that the department and department officials are listening. I’m hoping that the Minister is paying attention. These are recommendations, not just a Member sitting here talking about what he thinks is important. These are instruments. These are tools. These are standards that the Auditor General of Canada has asked of this government not only in education but in other departments.

I’d like to thank you for your time, for the delegation. I’m looking forward to diving into the details of the budget. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Next on the list is Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just some comments that I want to address with this particular department. I appreciate all the engagement that we’ve had with this department and their staff over the last few months. I think we really noticed that we needed to put some strong effort into working together and moving forward for this government stemming back from where our Standing Committee on Social Programs strategic planning in Hay River where we really got to look through the department and go into detail and see how things are working over the past few years.

Speaking to some of my colleagues here, we did get some recommendations out of the program review office that at some time we’d like to see addressed within the business plans. If not this one, we do have one coming up in the fall that would make spending our dollars a little bit more efficient, a little bit wiser, and using those dollars into programs where we can see fit. We’ve discussed that at the table with P and P as well as looking at the recommendations from the Office of the Auditor General. I really believe that those recommendations should be addressed and looked at as we move through the business plans.

Like my colleague here Mr. Bromley when we looked at the opening remarks and saw that there was only a 1 percent increase over the previous year’s main estimates, I took that as a concern because throughout this government I know the Minister has brought forth and done some Minister’s statements and press releases on the Aboriginal Student Achievement, language revitalization, elders in the schools. With a 1 percent increase it’s very hard for me to see that these new programs are going to have the support that they need to flourish while we’re still continuing to work on the other areas of our education system that a lot of my colleagues have addressed today.

In particular, the Aboriginal Student Achievement, just to bring it to the attention of the Members here, we had some really good coordinators in Inuvik that were lacking some support in getting what they thought was going to be some good ideas and some good working groups and working with the community to develop this plan, but they didn’t have the support and they both resigned their positions and all the hard work that they put into this so far has kind of gone to the wayside. Now we’re hoping that somebody in the community picks that up. I know that’s a big project that we’ve got going throughout the Northwest Territories. It concerns me that in Inuvik, where we have a lot of resources and a lot of community-based members, which these two members were community based, it makes me wonder how other communities are going to be impacted with the workload of creating this without any kind of financial support or other resources for them to work with.

The Minister did mention that there was, I think, $46 million here for advanced education and employment program. I’d like more information on that to see how we can – that’s a lot of money – better spend those dollars as we move forward in this business plan and it’s not just throwing money at another program here.

Like all my other colleagues have stated, you know, a 52 percent graduation rate is not successful. The way I’ve been putting it when I talk to people back home, I said, you know, you go into Grade 1 and you look at the class and you say, you know, from this point on half this class is going to graduate and the other half, what happens to them? They fall through the cracks. That’s where the emphasis is put on this early childhood development. We have to reach our youth at a very young age, right from birth to three where they’re most critical at learning and taking in all these cognitive, intellectual skills that will prepare them for when they get into the school system.

That said, we also need more child care providers, more licensed establishments. It’s very important. Right now in the Northwest Territories we are lacking those services. The more we lack those services the less opportunity that our youth get a chance to be part of such a growing aspect of our lives. That’s just the importance of our early childhood development.

One thing I wanted to note was the ALCIP, the Aboriginal Language and Cultural Instructor Program. In correspondence previous, it had mentioned that there were no graduates out of that program for the previous two years, and I know we just went through a graduation session in our communities. I think in Inuvik we actually had some graduates. I don’t know the numbers, but that was very positive to see that that program was finally successful in graduating some of the students that took that program.

I’m also very happy to see that in the work business plans and as we go through them that some legislation on the anti-bullying is going to be brought forth. The sooner we can get acting on that, the safer it will be for our students who are going to school in the fall time.

One other concern was our income support and the Productive Choices Program that the department has addressed. We find that it would be nice to get stats and updates on the Productive Choices Program to see how efficiently it’s working and the impact that it’s having on students that are going to school or on our mental health system, our counselling services as well.

There are a lot of concerns here and I know that as we deliberate over the next couple of days, we’ll work those out and that we can take lessons from this first business plan, as it’s my first business plan session, and we can bring recommendations and look at all the stats and all the facts and all the information that we’ve had since the beginning of this government.

It is a big budget and I respect that and I respect a lot of the projects and the programs that the department has to do within that department. I know it’s not easy, but you’ve got a lot of good, skilled, educated people here to help you out and assist you, as well, and we’re willing to do that.

Those are just my opening comments, Mr. Chair, and I thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Moving on our list, we have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll make my comments really brief here. I do believe this is one of the more important budgets. It’s the second largest and it represents over 20 percent of our budget. Like my colleagues, I am concerned that we have only seen a 1 percent increase in this budget. The importance of it is also in the fact that I think education, being the larger component of it, is important in the territory. It’s the investment in the future. And that’s at several different levels, whether it’s at early childhood, K to 12 and post-secondary and the apprenticeships. I think we should look at trying to commit more dollars to this department whenever possible, and I know there’s always more things we could be doing, but also looking at some of the reviews and some of the suggestions we’ve done through business plans to do some things smarter.

I know on the regional level we’ve looked for the department to give us the ability for a little bit more flexibility and how some of the budgets are handed out, where the money is set into columns and not flexible in certain areas, which our local education authorities have been trying to break down those columns so that they can use their monies more efficiently. That’s more on the local level.

One of the other areas of concern that I have is positioning and, obviously, like most departments in the GNWT, there are a great deal of positions that are in headquarters. This department, 71 percent represents headquartered positions. Obviously, there are a lot of positions that are through the local authorities but in the regional authorities but, still, headquarters has the bulk of the money that’s here. My concerns are the fact that those numbers should be… The money should be out in the regions where the kids and students are being educated.

I mentioned early childhood development. I think it’s an area that we need to work more on. Some of the difficulties with the graduation levels are because we lose some of these children really early in the system and they fall behind, and by the time they get to the graduation point they’re so far behind they’ve been discouraged and have dropped out. I think we need to commit more dollars to early childhood development.

As I mentioned, I’d like to see, along with that early childhood development, obviously, the graduation levels go up. Like my colleagues have indicated, these numbers are very low and they are a vital part of an indicator of how successful this department is doing.

Those are my opening comments. I’ll have more questions and comments as we get into detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. We’ll move on to the Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of comments as well. Some of them are going to be repetitive, but I think they bear repeating.

At the outset, I want to say that I’m dismayed about the lack of progress in the department on reducing our graduation rates. I feel that the department is doing a lot of really good things. We have a lot of projects on the go, but they don’t seem to be all that coordinated, and in my estimation, we’re not spending enough, we don’t put enough emphasis on basic education. Whether it be preschool, whether it be K to 12, even, I think, advanced education. I think that we are doing too many sort of special projects, some of which are certainly required, but I think if we are going to provide the education that most of us seem to feel that our kids deserve, we need to be concentrating more on making sure that the kids get the basic education that is required, making sure that the standards and the levels of education in every school and every community are the same across the territory. I hear pretty much on a regular basis that kids in schools outside of the regional centres are not achieving a standard or a level of education that is the same as in the regional centres and in the capital. That’s a real concern for me. I don’t see any reason why we should not be requiring the same of kids in a community school that we require of kids in a school in Yellowknife or Hay River or Inuvik.

I think that those results are evident in the Alberta Achievement Test results and the stats that the department produced awhile ago on functional grade levels and so on. It indicates that students in community schools are not achieving quite as well as I think they should and they’re not achieving on an equal basis with students in other regional centres and here in the capital.

I think that maybe the department needs to rethink what it’s doing, needs to coordinate what it’s doing and put a focus on what I like to think of as the basics. You know, the three R’s, reading, writing and arithmetic.

It’s been mentioned already, but I wanted to just mention in terms of the recommendations from the Standing Committee on Government Operations, their review of the Official Languages Act and the fact that those recommendations have not yet been acted upon. I believe the Minister said that that’s coming forward and I’m glad to hear that, but I am somewhat dismayed that we haven’t seen a legislative proposal already. I would hope it’s coming in the very near future.

In terms of early childhood development, I will have questions certainly when we get to that section. The Minister’s heard me say before, I don’t think we are doing enough. Interestingly, I heard Mr. Bromley say that he objected to the statement that K to 12 is a cornerstone of building a strong and sustainable future. I have to agree with him. It’s part of it. Absolutely, a strong K to 12 system is required, but we have to change what we’re doing. We have to change our mindset and we have to start thinking about kids from the moment that they’re born. We talk about prenatal from a health perspective, but we have to talk about the education, so to speak, of our children from the moment they are born until pretty much from dust to dust, or birth to dust. We don’t start from dust; we start at birth.

I wanted to comment. I have concerns about Aurora College. The Adult Literacy Basic Education program is run pretty much by the college and with the NWT Literacy Council, but I don’t think that we are achieving what we should through the ALBE program. Certainly, the program review office of the government has done some evaluation of that program. There have been recommendations there that we are inefficient, that we are not really achieving the best that we could, and I have yet to see any suggestion for changes in that program. I would certainly hope that in this Assembly there would be something from the department to revamp the ALBE program and make it more efficient and also make the people attending ALBE programs more successful. I don’t think we’re creating success in that program.

I am somewhat concerned to hear that income assistance requests are increasing, but we are not really increasing the money. That doesn’t quite jibe with me and I will have some questions when we get to that section. I’m trying to think. What else have I got here? I guess just in general – and it has been pointed out already – the department budget is increasing about 1 percent but forced growth, for instance, is about 1.5 percent, if my math is correct. It leads me to believe that somewhere within the department there are cuts to programs and services or something that are being made in order to account for the forced growth which isn’t being covered by the increase in the budget. I would like to get an explanation of that when we get further on.

I believe that’s all I have, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

I would like to thank the Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro. We will move on to the honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this opportunity to say a few brief words. The subject will be no stranger to the Minister’s ears as I bring it up, which is the independent campus of Aurora College, and spoken many times about how we should finally reach that particular point within our college development and long-term forecasting of our college programming where we should be able to say to ourselves that it is time to develop an independent campus here in Yellowknife.

Aurora College, for a number of years, has been an anchor tenant in the Northern United building, which I think the government has a moral responsibility to be part of, because if in the riding of Yellowknife Centre that building offers itself as a great opportunity for new Canadians, those who are at risk and certainly seniors, to have rent subsidized through the government being an anchor tenant, they are able to focus and keep those rents fair, but that moral obligation shouldn’t hold the Aurora College from building its particular plans to look forward to the future and its potential growth. The college itself is such format that it needs its own residence and companion programming sites. We could probably do so much more, as folks will say.

While I am on this particular topic of Aurora College, I want to use the chance to highlight the leadership provided by Sarah Wright Cardinal, and that is her tenureship as president of the college. I certainly hope that the department and certainly the Minister as well as the board of Aurora College keep her on and support some of the initiatives she has been bringing. I am very grateful for the work she does, the vision she has and certainly the passion and education and growth she has for the future of the North. The fact is she has such an ability to speak well and see the things and the potential in people that I think she has been a tremendous asset since she has come to the college. If anything, she has become one of the shining beacons of our bureaucracy, where it shows that this woman has risen through hard work and leadership skills and shining very brightly here.

One of the goals that I know she shares similar to mine is to see eventually that Yellowknife has an independent campus. I know it is the goal of the board of the Aurora College, which I welcome. I just wish the department itself would finally send somebody over there to be a decision-maker on this particular initiative, because everyone seems to recognize, but somebody – I don’t know who this somebody is but I would like to meet this somebody – keeps saying it’s a bad idea, or we should have more discussions, or we should talk to our partners more. All I hear is the same standard postage stamp replies to this problem, and the fact is that this college has matured to the point where it needs to be given that opportunity. It is time to unleash it in the sense of give it a chance to spread its wings onto the world.

An institution like our college is an amazing place because it allows the students to interact, not just in school but sort of in the dynamic thinking that you only get at college, and that said, it will be able to set its sights on the longer term goal of maybe bringing more university courses here and maybe eventually become a university through its accreditation. If we do these types of things, we will be bringing fresh university investment dollars of folks who want to do studies up here, who want to partner in the North, whether they want to do studies on First Nation culture, whether they want to do environmental studies. There are a lot of opportunities here for people to look at. The fact is these people are knocking on the doors here in the Northwest Territories but they have no one credited to partner with, so it’s a real struggle going back to the fact that it really ties together with the fact that I think the college continues its growth. It continues to be stifled by the Department of Education. I’m not sure who it is. Again, I would like to meet this somebody, because I think they need to be re-orientated. Its campus is continually being brushed aside and said no, you’re okay in the form you are.

At the same time, I would like to also emphasize that I don’t think this comes at a cost to the other two campuses. I know we have learning windows in other communities, but the main campuses are, of course, being Fort Smith and Inuvik. I think this still marries with the goals of the broader college mandate. It’s just in this region. It’s time to grow. I fear that is being held back, serious concerns that it may come at a cost to the other places. I don’t believe that being the case. I think each college campus can become an expert in the centre of excellence, per se, in its own specific courses.

That is a big one, but the fact is that Aurora College doesn’t have to be alone. There have been partners knocking on their door saying that they will be interested in dialogue. The Minister knows this. What holds them back? I’m not sure. Again, is it the bureaucracy? Is it one particular person?

To be frank, I get sick and tired of hearing we need to have more discussion. It’s all we do is talk. Well, let’s talk about when we are going to talk again. When we get there, we will talk some more because we have to plan ahead and we will talk more about that too. Let’s not talk about it all at once. It just gets nothing but frustrating. That’s some of the biggest ridicule you will hear from the public when they talk about politicians. They know how to talk themselves out of something. They talk themselves to avoid something. All they do is talk but never listen. Well, quite frankly, I wish the department would listen and hear the voices within the college, be it the system, be it the board of governors or even in the Territories saying that it is time for an independent campus If we put the can-do hat on as opposed to the can’t or won’t hat on. It would be a weird fit, I’m sure, for awhile, but let’s not be afraid of change. I think we can embrace it and we can do well.

The last part of this little story of Aurora College, I will call it the narrative of Aurora College, is the fact that there are willing partners out here to discuss. Some we don’t even know about yet, and the fact is we should be shopping around and talking about this. We should be talking about this idea about expanding the college maybe with the City of Yellowknife. What better opportunity to be talking to the city about maybe a new library? We can marry these things into some of the city’s goals. Bring this idealism to the city to say, look, what do you guys see as the future in Yellowknife? How could you and your partners work together to tie this down? Aurora College could be quite a hive of activity that brings such energy to the city, and not just to the city but to the Territories as a whole. I think we are really missing out on this great opportunity.

Again, I am sorry to harp on it but the reality is the reality, which is all we hear is we have to have discussions. I’ve been a Member and this is my ninth budget. Guess what we’re going to hear. We better have more discussions. Nine years later it continues to be the same saga. Nothing has changed other than the fact that just the players change. The answers still remain the same, more discussions and more discussions. All I keep saying is eventually someone is going to have to take a leadership role on this. It doesn’t just frustrate me, it frustrates a lot of people out there, the fact that somebody has to be showing that they’re in charge in this department.

No one believes that Aurora College, in an independent form, will happen overnight. I first and foremost do not believe that, but it starts with a commitment of saying we are going to do this and all of a sudden that has changed the paradigm of how we view the world. If we grabbed the excitement of that, all of a sudden synergy of the department would change, and the enthusiasm would happen and people would say how could we do more. Could we move our trades in there? We could all be part of this. Maybe we can join or partner with community school, community government. Maybe we could do more. People would be looking at it with pride and saying we could do more. The college itself would be so exciting. Just the enthusiasm, then someone would say if we’re going to do it within a decade, maybe we’re going to do it within eight years, maybe we’re going to do it within five years. I mean, it’s just that type of focus and commitment and we can get out there and pound the pavement. I know a lot of Yellowknife MLAs, as well as I hope our territorial MLAs, would get behind this and I bet we could find the partners. Whether it’s speaking to a federal counterpart or even just local folks.

As I mentioned earlier about the City of Yellowknife, we have a strip downtown on 50th Street where the city has been trying to reinvest and rebuild. It’s doing every effort they can to help redevelop the downtown. Is that the answer? I’m not an expert, I’m not going to say it is, but I certainly am not going to quickly say it isn’t, either.

It’s about long-term focus and what we can do for our students. It’s so easy to relax and go back to our standard answer, which is well, let’s have some discussions and we’ll be safe. Well, unfortunately the safe answer makes us look bad and the safe answer never gets anything done, and the safe answer discourages people as they look towards their political leaders for leadership.

There is no bold thinking and that’s the problem. We need someone finally with the courage to make this happen. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but that’s just being honest. But that type of honesty is welcome enthusiasm from our public. Just saying look, I don’t know how we’re going to get there, but I’ll tell you what, I’ll buy the gas, the car, we’ll all pile in, we’ll figure out how we’re going to get there, we’re going to find out where we’re going, but by golly we’re going to go. There may be some bumps, but we’re going to have a good time doing it, and yes, there will be some challenges, but the fact is we’re going and we’re committed behind this adventure.

Mr. Chairman, as I close off my point, there are many subjects such as early childhood education, inclusive schooling and, as I mentioned the other day, first aid should be a requirement as part of our high school programming, but I’ll find the specific page that I’ll raise those particular subjects on. It’s amazing how fast 10 minutes goes when you just get warmed up.

I’d like to thank the Member for YK Centre, Mr. Hawkins. Moving to the Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just taking the opportunity just to provide some comments on Education, Culture and Employment. I think the most common saying that our people hear all the time, especially in communities, is that education is important and now more than ever as we move forward to what lays ahead on the horizon for the North, especially in terms of the North’s role in the global economics in terms of resource development. It’s more important that people encourage, especially the young people, to try and advance themselves to higher levels of education and ultimately to try and get degrees in terms of achieving their goals through university and studies. I think more so we need to encourage, that for some time, at least in my era, it was accepted that yes you need to go to school and advance yourself and if you can get your Grade 12 that’s good, but now I think times have changed. It’s more important than ever for our people to advance as far as they can. We need to ensure that it’s clearly understood that we encourage people, especially First Nations within the Northwest Territories, to try and go as far as they can and to try and be supportive and allow them to grow, to mold and at the same time just to recognize their efforts and their sacrifice during that time of their struggle to get their educational goals.

There are various initiatives that are very positive that I think the department has undertaken and been involved with. It’s a big department, because there’s education, culture and employment. But for the most part I’ve always been a very strong advocate of technology in terms of how it is that we use it to employ at least a medium to try to enhance education, especially for young people, because now we have a generation that are very knowledgeable in terms of computers, computer systems, iPads, cell phones. So the latest and most recent effort was to develop an iPad application for the languages, and I think that’s something that I think the department has to be commended on and to try to at least make a medium like that, a technological medium to make it at least accessible to young people so that they could use it to employ at least writing in their own language, reading in their own language and I think that’s a very big plus. That’s just one example of a few things that I’ve noted.

But there are concerns expressed to me in the community and one of the biggest concerns is the rates of graduates. Are we doing all we can, whether statistics could maybe focus on that in terms of how successful we are? But the concern is that we should have more graduates coming out of Grade 12 and advancing themselves to a higher level of education through university. At the same time, there are all these concerns that parents have always expressed to me. Well, how is it that my son or daughter could graduate from Grade 12 and when they go down to Edmonton or Vancouver why is it that they have to struggle? I mean, what happens during that transition? For the most part their conclusion is just the standards of education that we use. Perhaps we need to maybe have a curriculum that both considers the unique part of the Northwest Territories and the culture, at the same time just the mainstream Canadian society in terms of trying to ready people for entering the workforce. So I think there needs to be perhaps some discussion and maybe some focus in terms of how it is that we can make some improvements on that.

The other concern that I have is just on the rates of dependence. I mean, if kids are not in school, then obviously they suffer and I think there’s maybe some cooperative efforts that need to be considered in terms of working with the local district education authorities in terms of how it is that that circumstance could be remedied.

Also at the same time, we have a very burgeoning young population here in the Northwest Territories and there is almost a need for focus not only in terms of what’s happening right now. Right now there’s a lot of development in terms of mining in the mining industry. So they’re trying to focus and tailor training programs to make opportunity for people that are interested in a mining career to enter into that area of work, but there are also clear indications of some other things that are very significant that are coming down the block in the Northwest Territories like oil and gas. There’s forestry potential. So we almost have to try and diversify our approach and ensure that training programs meet the needs of people and the circumstances that arise.

In that instance, I don’t know if the department has done a long-term human resource development strategy in terms of perhaps a five-year or 10-year analysis on what will be the needs in 10 years’ time. We need to put some focus on that in terms of how it is that we could project the needs of our people down the road and what should we focus on right now. I think perhaps the department has done that and I would like to see something that could be revisited, and maybe in that instance, in that effort maybe an effort could be made to try and branch out into partnerships with regional groups or bodies that are at the receiving end, the federal dollars to help them improve the human resources in their regions.

There are other concerns that I have. One of them is, of course, the lack of any capital infrastructure or aging infrastructure in communities. There’s always a need for more buildings. One in particular is that we have preschools or initiatives that are very successful, but then they’re having building issues. A very real need for us to see how it is that we can have a very successful preschool program, but then we don’t have a building, or else there are issues with the building. I think those things are immediate. They have to be dealt with to try to at least engage with the local leaders to see how it is that we can resolve unfortunate realities that we have to deal with at the community level.

Another thing that I wanted to mention too was, you know, there could be, at some point, if there are successful partnerships with regional bodies, there could be efforts to maybe establish trade centres in some regions or communities, and there might be an interest from community leaders to try and achieve a concept like that. I’d really encourage the department to look at building upon partnerships and looking at these creative avenues of how groups could come together in light of the constraining fiscal resources and need for cooperation and partnership. In those instances, perhaps you might have an achievement of where there’s a level of synergies and the output would be an effort that is clearly distinguished in terms of maybe a trade centre that could be established through the efforts of all sides.

The other thing that I note is just the closure of the Western Arctic Leadership Program. The Western Arctic Leadership Program in Fort Smith has been, I think, in my eyes, a very successful program. It created a lot of young leaders that have been residents in that place, in Fort Smith. It had some very committed house parents that made the sacrifice to try and help the youth of the Northwest Territories. They did not have the choice or else they made a clear, conscious effort to try and be in that residence and try to focus on the academics. Obviously, that’s a concern but whether that thing is a foregone conclusion, I don’t know. But I’d just like to distinguish that it was a very successful program for some years. It used to be that we didn’t have high school in small communities but now that’s normal and it’s very common to have Grade 9 to Grade 12 in small communities. But I just wanted to make that distinction.

Last but not least, if at some point you recognize down the road the need for a university, I think it’s real. I think this government, at some point, needs to see that, to try to at least have some discussion and focus in terms of how it is that it could become a reality. I think there are some very real issues that could be maybe focused in terms of some discussions on some very global issues. Like, for one, on climate change. Things of that nature that could be a topic of study. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. We’ll move on to Mr. Bromley for a very short supplementary and comment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There was one more comment I had on the Minister’s opening remarks, and that was his referral to the Anti-Poverty Strategy. I meant to mention that. I think the department and his staff have shown good leadership and are a very important partner in carrying that strategy forward and I wanted to recognize the good work that the department is doing on that front. It was just a slight miss that I wanted to mention. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Seeing that there are no further general comments, we will move over to the Minister of Education for the opportunity to respond.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I will try to cover all questions and concerns that were addressed here today.

First of all, when we talk about the 1 percent increase over the year period from now, I’m just glad that we received an increase of 1 percent and not a decrease. Yes, we do have a greater opportunity for our ECE department to move forward. We have greater things on the go. I think we just have to be creative and innovative within our department. That’s the direction I gave to my department, that we need to think creatively how we can maneuver and tackle all these different opportunities out there with what we have as a budget.

Dealing with education in the small communities, it’s been brought up on the AATs over time, mostly highlighting the small communities. I think we’re doing something a bit different than before where ASA we’ve reached out to the communities. We wanted to hear from the communities’ perspective. They’re the experts and we wanted to hear them out, so we did that. And it does capture AATs as well. As I indicated in my opening comments, there is a plan in place for implementation of ASA, an action plan towards that, so I’m truly looking forwards to rolling out the program. We have done that already to some degree on some of the small initiatives. I did highlight in my opening remarks, as well, mandatory orientation for teachers, cultural orientation and so forth. We’ll continue to do that.

Just tracking of students after they leave high school to college and university and work. We can’t do it all as a department but I’m hoping the communities are doing their part, because they have career development in communities, as well, and band councils and municipalities and so forth. I think we all need to get together and highlight those certain individuals that have been in the system, because once they leave the college – because we sponsor them through SFA – then we don’t know where they go at times. But if their name shows up in a trade or an apprenticeship program, then they’re on the system again. But this is an area that has to be collaborated between the communities and our department and other departments as well.

The adult education, there’s been talk about the ALBE federal funding. Federal funding is strictly towards enhancing our ALBE program. We will be monitoring and working closely with the college, and I believe we just received a planning process for the funding that’s been identified, and I believe my department is going through that document. We will be working closely with them in identifying the key topics that have been discussed here around the table.

Income support clientele going down. That was great to hear from the Sahtu region. I wish every community had the economic boost as the Sahtu so we can have those people off income support. That is the hope and dream. We will continue to push in that venue.

Also, there was talk about some clientele, I guess, income support, where community members expect handouts. I guess I can provide an example where community members want to go duck hunting for elders and they ask this individual walking on the street who says, well, I can’t go because I have an income support appointment. It was an embarrassing moment for that individual to be asking that but… Anyway, there are productive choices that the Member has stated and that maybe providing more detailed information on the progress to date. We can certainly provide that to the Members.

Arts and culture, of course, over the years we’ve increased the funding and we will continue to do so. It sounds like there wants to be more emphasis on that. The museum, it is a major tourism economy for the Northwest Territories, so I’m also happy to see the money identified to repair the fire damage.

There is talk about the language and the culture preservation and as we get into more detail we can discuss that further.

Early childhood development. It’s been the forefront of our discussions since we started and we will continue to do so. ASA is also the forefront of discussion. We talked about the zero to three years we should start early. We agree. But at the same time, the parents need to be involved. It’s the parents’ responsibility, as well, when the child is breastfeeding. The parents need to be there. But we, as the department, what can we do to assist those parents? If we can provide some programming and some parental guidance, because some kids are having kids as well. There is a lot of work in this area. ASA has identified this as a priority too. We’ll do our part working along with the Department of Health and Social Services and also the community organizations to make this an effective program.

The revised ECD framework versus not renewed, those are discussions that we will be having. Training early childhood workers, the college has been very successful delivering that Early Childhood Certification Program over the years. With any programs, if there needs to be room for improvement, we’ll definitely pursue that with the college. There have been a lot of changes in the college programming. This is an area of interest, especially in the early childhood development, so we’ll definitely pursue that further with the college. More emphasis on the early years and early health, I believe Mr. Bromley alluded to.

The Anti-Poverty Strategy, we are actively involved with that with the committee that’s been established, along with Health and Social Services and other departments. We’ll continue to contribute towards this great initiative.

The Auditor General’s recommendation, key indicators, performers, measures, so forth, I totally agree that we need to have those mechanisms in place to follow through with all of the recommendations that have been brought to our attention. We will be following through with each and every recommendation. We do have an action plan in place that’s been created to tackle those areas.

Number of students excused, peer passing, I believe that the Aboriginal Student Achievement will definitely capture that. When we talk about Aboriginal Student Achievement we talk about the other students, as well, and compare them to Alberta. Those are the areas that will be captured through the Early Childhood Development Framework as well. This is a very serious area for us. It’s been brought up in this House on several occasions that some of our students are not passing and then a lot of questions. My department’s been working on this particular area, working closely with the school boards as well. We’ll continue to do that.

Program review office integrating into 2013-2014 budget. As we move forward that will be part of the discussion that we need to have. When we talk about the new budget that will be coming on stream and how we can integrate that program review and the recommendations brought forward.

There was talk about the Inuvik Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, the committee that was struck – and there’s one here in Kaw Tay Whee as well. There’s an ASA committee that’s been established. It’s been working well to date but from my understanding, meeting with the MLA and the mayor, there’s been some lack of community involvement as well. We want, we’re trying to find out what’s truly happening and through the school boards, the funding that we give them, if they could access that because with ASA we’re still in the planning stages, the implementation. Once that kicks in, then there will definitely be some support mechanism there. It’s very disheartening and sad to hear that the committee members departed, but I’m hoping they will be revived again.

The Member is correct that they reach out to our youth at a young age. That should be our overall goal.

The ALSA program, I believe there have been seven grads this year. I could be wrong but Behchoko also had a grad in the ALSA program. So we want to make this even more, I guess the deliverance into the communities, into the regions. Because without them it’s going to be very difficult to deliver Aboriginal language programming into the school system. This is an area that what we tackled and we want to improve even further.

Anti-bullying legislation has been brought up in the House. My department has been actively busy pursuing that with research that has been done. Talks a couple weeks ago on this particular subject. The community members were asking what kind of legislation are we looking at. We wanted to look at the broad sector of a policy that is a directive from the department onto all the schools in 33 communities so they can have their policy, their own community perspective policy on how to deal with anti-bullying. We are moving forward on this and we will be meeting with the standing committee as we conclude our discussion on this particular subject.

PYs at headquarters. I totally agree that they should be in the regional communities. That’s part of our overall goals and objectives of this government to decentralize. We’ve heard in this House already and in Detah when we first initially gathered. We’ll do what we can, if we can find suitable positions in the community. Of course the housing will be a challenge. Those are the areas we need to highlight, but it is in the works. We’re working closely with HR department on this perspective.

Graduation levels should go up and also even the graduation rates. There again, I totally agree that we need to do more. We need to work with the school boards because they’re responsible for the operation of their school systems in the communities. We’ll pressure them more to produce more of the true graduates that can go to post-secondary without upgrading. At the same time, when we first started ASA, we heard it’s about awareness. The parents are sometimes not involved, are not aware of what their kids are taking. I think it’s a matter of educating ourselves, whether it be the department going to the communities or the school board going to the communities, having a forum with the parents, or one-on-one sessions. Over time I’ve heard some parents don’t know what some of their kids are taking in high school. We want every child to be successful in our school system. As parents – I do have kids, as well – we want them to succeed in life. I read to them as much as I can at home and I know what program they’re involved in, but unfortunately it’s not like that in every household. This is an area that we need to tackle together. Not just the Department of Education, Culture and Employment but the school boards, the community leaders, the parents, the grandparents. We all have to do our part in this.

The Official Languages Act recommendations. It is coming forward. I’m glad the Member raised that issue. We just reviewed it and I believe it’s next week that we’ll be before standing committee on this particular subject. We want to act on the recommendations brought forward. Some of the areas will be ongoing work that’s part of the recommendations, but we want to address those next week when we’re before standing committee.

The college, ALBE possibly not being successful and possibly would like to see some changes in this area. This has been addressed with the college already. I also wanted to see more at the community-based level, not just ALBE but accounting program or other trade programs, certification, management certification program. That’s what’s been asked for at the community level. This will certainly be addressed with the college again. This is an area that the funding has been identified by the federal government, so we are again working closely as a department with the college to identify those needs at the community level.

Independent Aurora College campus and residence. This is an area that has been discussed in the House on numerous occasions. If I had $100 million we would have the campus right now. I don’t have that $100 million in capital funds. At the same time, we are making progress. We are in the final stages of extending our lease with Northern United Place which will allow us some time to deal with this in part of the capital planning process. As the Member alluded to, enough talking. We still have to talk with our partners to create partnerships and to identify funds. Without them this won’t be possible. Nowadays, even at the federal level, they’re talking about partnerships. We’ve had, a couple weeks ago, a meeting on this particular subject, just a preliminary discussion, and the library was brought up at that time too as part of the college campus. These are just some of the exploration that we’re pursuing with the various potential partners. We’ll continue to have that dialogue. Especially this fall, we’re gathering all the stakeholders on this subject, once we sign out the lease agreement for extension. So we’ll keep the Members in the loop of our progress on this particular subject.

Enhancing education technology for our students. Language apps was a very successful project and now we’re dealing with other languages that are still outstanding. There are Smart Boards in classrooms that have been very successful to date and we’ll continue to invest in those high-tech technologies for our students.

There is an extremely large population of young people in the Northwest Territories. This is an area of interest to us, how we can deal with that. There’s also, again working with HR department on developing our own human resources strategy, the needs of the people, I guess, down the road. We also need to partner with the communities, the development corporations, the band councils. They’re the ones that are experts on where their community members are because they have band lists, they have community lists. We need to work with them.

There is a lack of capital infrastructure for aging infrastructures in the communities. We need to go over those. Every capital planning process, we go through the communities and regions on what their most critical needs are and it’s based on that the decision is being made. We’ll have to be mindful of those preschools the Member has alluded to.

Also establishing trade centres in the communities. Again, the Member alluded to creating partnerships. I totally agree with that, that we need to step up to the plate and work with the communities. We have done that in the past and we should pursue it even further. I’m open to the concept as well.

Western Arctic Leadership Program. I believe there’s been involvement over the past several years. ECE has been involved. ENR and Enbridge, I believe. Our contribution over the years, $275,000 per year, has always been part of our contribution. Again, at the end of the day it was the decision of the board not to continue with this programming. Well, you know, we provided great extension into the communities. Maybe they’ve highlighted it as well. It was the decision of the board so we have to respect that decision. If they were to continue that, $275,000 would have been disbursed this year.

The need for a university to focus more on whether it be climate change or scientific research, I totally agree. We talked about this just the other day as well. I’ll be meeting with my counterparts from Nunavut and Yukon territories to specifically talk about the University of the North. Those are the discussions that we’ve been having with the federal government. Chuck Strahl of the day, at that time, but now we have Mr. Duncan, so it will certainly be addressed with that mandate as well. I believe I captured almost all of it. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. That appears to conclude general comments. Does the committee wish to proceed to detail?

Agreed.

Thank you, committee. With that in mind, I will ask committee members to turn to their pages of 10-7, just to make aware that the department summary. We will defer this until after consideration of detail. Does the committee agree?

Agreed.

Thank you. I will ask you to turn to page 10-8. Education, Culture and Employment, information item, infrastructure investment questions. Any questions? We will go over to 10-9. Education, Culture and Employment, information item, revenue summary. Any questions? Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a question here with regard to the change in revenue for the Cooperation Agreement for French and Aboriginal Languages. I know that from the revised main estimates for 2011-12 to the main estimates for 2012-13 there is a significant drop in revenue. I wondered if I could get an explanation. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.