Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Most definitely part of the planning study obviously would engage community leadership, community members. They need to be involved along the way. We are looking at the long term, up to 10 years ahead. The classification status is still yet to be identified. As I indicated, this is a planning study that is just currently underway in 2014-15. Whether it is classification C or D, E, that will be identified at that time.
The Building Canada Fund, I was just asking my staff if we ever accessed that kind of funding, and to my knowledge we haven’t identified an area where we can pursue that. I will get Ms. Allison to maybe elaborate a bit more in detail. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Allison.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regards to the Building Canada Fund, we did look into it briefly for another project, but we will ensure that there are no pots of money that we can go after for this particular project.
In respect to Fort Liard, we’ve been working with Public Works to address several issues that were brought forward by the school principal in Fort Liard. Some of the items were completed during this summer.
With respect to parking, we had asked for an estimate to have someone go down and look at it in closer detail, but I do have some general guidelines that can be reviewed in regard to parking in small communities, and I’d like to go over that with the school principal first to see if there are ways we can mitigate the issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Allison. Continuing on, I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few areas of, I guess, concern. When we were talking about education with their very big department O and M, but obviously we’re making some changes within this department to give the best opportunity for our youth and our adults, depending on whatever level of education or degree where they are in their lives, what concerns me is just the amounts that have been allocated in this capital budget for Education, Culture and Employment. That’s 2.36 percent of the capital budget focused in this department when it’s such a big area of concern for obviously the small communities especially, and yet we’re not addressing some of those concerns.
When you look at some of the statistics, attendance is probably our biggest challenge to get kids into the seats in the schools, but if we have schools that aren’t even there, or even schools that are not adequate enough to house X number of students, then there’s possibly a reason why our attendance is so bad. That leads to a lot of other social determinants that affect a person’s life starting at a very young age. As I said, in the small communities we see that is pretty evident and you heard it here today.
Another thing that we’re doing this year in 23 of the schools, I believe, is the Junior Kindergarten, and I think in this capital budget we’re looking at making some renovations to some of the schools to address the needs that are going to be associated with bringing the four-year-olds into the school system. I think that as we learn what this Junior Kindergarten is doing, we’re going to see that we’re going to need to do more renovations moving forward, and once again the system, whether it’s a washroom or whether it’s creating new areas to do play-based activities, then those are costs that we’re going to see and they’re going to add stress to the educator, it will add stress to the school, and whether we’re prepared for that or not, I see that it is addressed in the capital budget, but it’s not addressed for all the schools. We’re going to see some challenges, and how are we going to address those moving forward? I know there have been talks about a lot of reallocation within this department and where are we going to find the dollars to address some of these potential concerns that might be coming up here.
In Inuvik we do have an issue here with the Aurora College family units and when we’re going to get those up and running again, because I know the department is spending a lot of money right now as they’re in an agreement with one of the rental companies in Inuvik. Even though those family units aren’t being fully utilized because we have a low enrollment in the college, we’re spending a lot of money, throwing a lot of dollars at vacant units right now, family units. That’s money that could go into breakfast programs; that’s money that could be going to other things.
Last year we had a motion that was brought to the House regarding a stand-alone campus for here in Yellowknife, and we did go over and met with the staff, met with the students, we did a tour of the college, and it was evident that space was an issue here in Yellowknife for a lot of the departments and a lot of the programs that were being available. We did go to one room where we saw X number of nursing students all crowded together in one room. I can’t even remember how many there were, but there was quite a bit. That just goes back to my argument that we’ve got to start utilizing whatever infrastructure we have in the other campuses where we’re putting too much stress on the building, we’re putting too much stress on the instructors, and I think that the Minister really needs to have a good talk with the Board of Governors on how we start utilizing all the space that we have in the NWT for programs within the Aurora College field.
A couple of other concerns that I had with this department was when they are doing planning studies, you mentioned you’re doing some planning studies here, Inuvik was, you know, a lot of work went into that school. There was an issue around the dental office. It’s supposed to be something that’s supposed to be great for the kids and we’re not even using it. I think the planning study didn’t take that into consideration, and if you walk out of the school into the school grounds and you’re promoting play-based learning with Junior Kindergarten and you walk into the playgrounds and there’s no playground. There’s a lot of grass, a lot of hills, logs, I think that’s what it is. Our playground in Inuvik is logs. It’s ridiculous. When we do these planning studies, we’ve got to look at things that are going to help our students learn cognitively and be able to use their minds and not crawl around and jump over logs and rocks. It’s something that was overlooked; it was an oversight. I’m not too sure what happened there, but I think that needs to be addressed not only at East Three elementary but also with schools as we’re looking at developing them.
As we’re going through ECE, I didn’t see much here for the culture component. As the Minister knows, our languages are a dying breed right now, especially in some of the regions they’re getting worse, but we’re not seeing anything in terms of culture, tradition, developing space so that we can highlight some of the history. Not only that, maybe adding to the museums that we have, looking at ways we can be innovative in getting our culture revitalized that will help promote our languages as well.
So, just a few things of concern there within this department. It’s such a big department that has a lot of responsibility and the education and the wellness and livelihood of our people of the Northwest Territories, and we’re only investing 2.36 percent of this capital budget into seeing what we can do for our residents.
So, obviously some concerns, but on a plus side I guess it’s nice to see that we’re taking alternative energy options for some of the schools with the pellet boilers and those kind of things, but still a lot of concern, and I think for me a lot of them need to be addressed in years to come.
So, just a few comments, some concerns. In terms of the playground at East Three elementary, I know there was a lot of parents that are pretty, I wouldn’t even say concerned, I guess shake their heads and don’t understand how we cannot put a playground in front of the school when we have all these elementary schools out there. They can only play tag and hide and seek. You can’t even go hiding in that thing, so you can’t even play hide and seek. So I think that’s something that needs to be addressed with the playground at the East Three elementary.
So, a few concerns there, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. What the Member has brought up are a lot of points that obviously have been brought to our attention as well. Due to the fact we are investing just over $6.5 million in capital projects, there may not be much out of a $125 million budget, but at the same time we spend well over $290 million over a five-year period when it comes to schools and different educational assets in the Northwest Territories.
Yes, we need to focus on the small communities, as the Member alluded to, small community schools. We’ve done that. There is Lutselk’e school, there is Charles Tetcho School renovation, Colville Lake. We want to do more, but it’s a funding crunch, and all the departments have their own wishes and we do too. We put in as much as we could and this is what we got out of the actual budget.
When it comes to family units, there has been an agreement in place. I totally agree with the Member; there are three different campuses, 33 communities, 23 community learning centres. How can we best utilize the campuses in the Northwest Territories? There are some campuses that may be a bit empty and some are full. Those are areas that we are currently capturing with the Board of Governors of Aurora College, how to best utilize our spaces, our program delivery as well. Those are ongoing discussions that we are currently having as part of the Aurora College long-term plans, how to deal these areas.
East Three School, the dental office, I’ll get Ms. Allison to maybe elaborate on that a bit. The playground has been brought to our attention as well. It was part of the planning process when the East Three School came up. The JK came after that, so we’ll deal with the JK infrastructure at that level, but this is an area that my department has been working with PWS when we were developing the planning study. Members ask that future plan studies should be capturing these kinds of initiatives. We are hearing the Member and they should be captured. Those are some of the areas that will be discussed as well.
The culture components, the museum will obviously take over the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat, and we have a couple of staff moving to the main floor, working with regional and community levels as to how we can best deliver programs when it comes to the cultural components, or even revitalizing our language. The space is required to do so. So I am glad Members are referring to that where the museum will be the host of that for the regional perspective. We are moving forward on that, but I will get Ms. Allison on the dental office, I guess, with the E3 School.
I will turn it over to Ms. Allison.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Allison.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to the East 3 dental suite, the planning for this project for the East 3 School had started in 2004-2005. Unfortunately, at that point, or since that time and with the beginning of construction, numerous things had changed, basically the standards within the Health department for these dental therapy suites.
We have estimated the amount of money that would be required. We asked Public Works to do that in order to upgrade it, but we have some bigger questions as to whether or not this program fits well in the school at this point. Because of infection control and the amount of exchanges of air per hour that are required, we just aren’t convinced that it is a good fit with our schools. We have numerous schools that would be affected by this as well. This is going to be a larger conversation that has to happen between the Department of Health, Public Works and probably the regional health board in the Beaufort-Delta. We are still waiting to have that meeting and discuss how that can move forward.
With regards to Junior Kindergarten, I would just like to let the Member know that for ‘15-16 and ‘16-17 the department has identified the need for upgrades, and it is based primarily on the schools that have utilizations where they would require upgrades. So if the utilization is over 85 percent, then we know that there would be more significant upgrades compared to if it is at 40 percent where we don’t see as much changing because the school can handle the population. But it is agreed that we will have to watch and see what is required in the future for the addition of this program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Allison. Continuing on with general comments on ECE, I have Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will keep my comments fairly brief. I think most Members have taken on the issues that concern me.
I guess one of the biggest issues that I see right off the hop is, like other Members have indicated, it is one of the biggest operating budgets but yet it is probably well in the bottom half of the capital budget. My concerns would be the fact that we have to keep upgrading schools. We have to keep upgrading those facilities. I see a couple of retrofits on them but not a lot of big projects. I know we have done a couple of big projects in the regional centres, but it just seems that we are not… We are given kind of multiple years here; we should be looking at more of a phased-in approach and having more projects on the go, I would think, for that size of department.
My concerns are as well with Junior Kindergarten. I think we are getting indications already before the budgets are even being implemented that the money is not enough that’s being put there. We are going to see demands from communities that the retrofits are going to be way more expensive than we originally estimated. You’re doing a lot of communities; you’re implementing this in all the communities, so it will be a bigger budget. I think we have underestimated the cost that it is going to take to fit these young children into our school system. I think we should reassess that sooner than later so that we actually have an indication of what it is going to cost to put these youth into the school system.
I guess it is concerning, again, the stuff that’s not in there. The troubling issue is always a concern, I think, from this side of the floor, that we have a school that is in a community hall that we continue to put money into and why aren’t we building a school there as opposed to just upgrading a community hall.
The other thing that’s not in here, and I know we are waiting for a court case, but I think the government has stepped aside from its responsibilities with the French schools in the fact that it says, well, we’re just going to wait for a court case, which is not necessarily a proactive approach. We know that there is going to be some costs associated with this; we need to be putting some money into it. I’ve made Member’s statements to this effect, that to have a French community versus a non-French community fighting amongst each other or having to argue about the cost of these facilities, upgrades and the court case is part of the government’s responsibility. They are the ones that created it because they want to fight the system. I think there should be some money that we are starting to put away, but then again I see us find lots of money real quick if we need it. I am concerned that we’re not putting anything in for the French schools. We know there is a court case coming, but we also know that we lost the first one. So that’s just my opening comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Our overall goal as a department is obviously to look after our schools throughout the Northwest Territories, the 49 schools. Some are very much deteriorating and some are fairly new. Now our overall emphasis is to focus on those schools that are badly in need, whether it be a renovation or a retrofit. So we will continue to push that forward during the capital planning process on an annual basis.
Over the years, obviously, the Members have supported us at that level, so we’ll continue to push that forward.
The $400,000 for the JK, that’s just some of the upgrades that we needed to do, the 23 schools that we’ve initiated, and the Member is asking that we should reassess. Obviously, with any new initiative, there will obviously be some analysis or assessment that will be embarked on. So, this is an area that we will be closely monitoring. Other communities may require some infrastructure upgrade to meet the demands of the delivery of JK programming.
French school, yes, it is before the courts, as you know. To put the funds in place, as the Member indicated, until the court decision comes down, that’s when the decision will be made and that’s when we’ll know the actual costs. Right now we wouldn’t know the overall costs of if there’s going to be a renovation or gymnasium or other infrastructure that’s required. Once it’s settled through courts, then we’ll decide to move forward on the actual expenditure on how much it will cost us. So at this point, we’re just waiting for a court decision on these two schools, one in Hay River and also in Yellowknife as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Continuing on with general comments for Education, Culture and Employment, I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess, once again, our second largest department budget-wise, operations is relegated to 2 percent for the third year in a row of our capital budget, 2 percent. This despite repeated and ongoing requests of MLAs to help set the priorities, the Finance Minister mentioned, year after year, to put more capital dollars into this department to reflect our regard for education as the number one priority and capital being an important part of that.
Sissons, of course, in Yellowknife, I heard the Minister just say our approach is to focus on schools that badly need it. Well, good grief; Sissons has needed it since my first year as a politician. It has been raised every year and nothing is happening. Our kids continue to go school there. Our Commission scolaire francophone Territories du Nord-Quest turned it down. We wouldn’t take that; we wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. And who can blame them? It’s an embarrassment, and again, we’re sending our kids there. So, 2 percent of the capital budget is hardly worth spending any time on here.
The courts have said we’ve got to provide these things, and we’re going back and arguing about that, but I mean, at some level we will have to do that. Once again, it’s not reflected in the budget. I know the department’s working on this and perhaps they’ve identified a school or two, but presumably there would be a capital budget requirement for that. So again, it’s another department that will likely have more added later that we’re not hearing about.
So the ECE budget, capital budget, $5.8 million NWT-wide, not a dollar, not a single loonie to be spent on schools, school infrastructure, in Yellowknife and Hay River, 60 percent of our children.
The Aurora College we know remains. I was fortunate to join my colleagues from committee on a tour not so long ago, and I have to say, we missed it, each of us missed half the tour because we couldn’t fit in the space where the discussion was going on. Talk about sardines. Yet no mention, no discussion. Yeah, sardines. Sardines in a can, and every one of the people we saw said that, of course, and pointed out how they couldn’t turn around. I have to say, I agree that there’s very little cultural investment other than the dollars going towards the replacement of a generator at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Museum. Again, a third year in a row, a 2 percent capital budget and long-standing issues not being resolved.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This is what is before us, $6.5 million of new money that we’re moving forward on. Again, I have to remind that we spent well over $290 million over the last five years throughout the Northwest Territories and our overall education system, educational infrastructure, so we should be proud of the investment that we’ve undertaken in the communities, and we’ll continue to push that forward with the $6.5 million this year, and next year it could be a different number. We have to work with the Peer Review Committee as it goes through the overall capital infrastructure. At the end of the day, the decision lies there. We put so many projects in the hopper so at the end of the day they’ll provide us with $6.5 million, so that’s what we’re moving forward on.
When we talk about J.H. Sissons and other schools that need renovation, obviously there is a meeting that is happening with YK 1 and with the public, but at the same time, we have to keep in mind the reality, even in Yellowknife and the three school boards, the enrolment that we have in the overall school system, some as low as 30, 35 percent. This is a very serious issue that we all need to work together towards to come up with a solution, We as the department are trying to work with the school boards to identify those areas and have a plan of action, so we’re just waiting to hear from the school board. I believe there is a meeting that’s coming up. We want to move forward on that and we want to capture and deal with those low percentiles with enrolment.
Aurora College campus has been in discussion for a number of years, and the Member has alluded to that. We’re fully aware of that too. That is another one that at times goes in our overall capital infrastructure hopper, but at the end of the day it’s not approved. It’s an $80 million budget that it has to be earmarked and, as you know, it’s $125 million territorial-wide, and $80 million to put that part of the process, I think, would be a difficult task to move that forward. At the same time, my department has always been pushing that forward and we will continue to do so. We’re fully aware of the situation at the Aurora College campus here in Yellowknife. Then again, there are three campuses. Why couldn’t we maximize our program delivery in other campuses that we have? Those are ongoing discussions we are currently having with the Board of Governors and we want to make those changes.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Continuing on with general comments, I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments are very similar to those of my colleagues and for good reason. I think we are all concerned about the amount of dollars that is in this section of the capital budget for this department. It is almost 25 percent of our operations budget, and yet, as has been stated, it’s less than 2.5 percent of the capital for this particular department. There is only one major project in this $6.4 million that the Minister just mentioned, and that’s renovations to the Lutselk'e Dene School. The other school projects are relatively minimal. There’s no reference in documents that we’ve seen to date to any major school projects over the next three years from ’15-16 up to ’17-18. There are no major school projects in there.
As has been mentioned, there is no indication from the department that there is any financial planning taking place to deal with the court decision regarding French schools, and I think that this is a symptom, to me, of what we seem to do as a government, that the government says, well, yeah, we know we’re going to have a problem, but we’re going to wait until we actually know for sure that there’s a problem and then we’ll start planning. That puts any kind of school project or expansion to the French schools either in Hay River or in Yellowknife, that puts it back at least five years. If I remember the decision of the court, I think it was supposed to be completed in 2015. Well, we’re pretty much there and I don’t see anything in this capital plan that indicates to me that the department is planning and is putting money aside to do renovations to the French schools as we’ve been ordered. I know we’re relying on the appeal, but when the appeal comes due and we’re told that we were supposed to comply with the decision that was made over a year ago now, where are we going to be? No money.
I’m a little concerned about the reference to Junior Kindergarten renos, and there are renovations identified in here, minor capital upgrades to support the addition of Junior Kindergarten in existing schools. Well, it’s in ’15-16 and the program started in ’14-15, so we’re doing upgrades to schools after the fact so we’re going to have programs running at least for one year in schools, Junior Kindergarten programs that are running in presumably substandard facilities, so I’m struggling with that. I know there are some renovations that are happening this year, but we’re obviously doing renovations to JK classrooms for the next two years as the program unfolds, and that seems to be putting the cart before the horse to me.
I sympathize and empathize with Mr. Menicoche’s position with regard to the Trout Lake school. We’re going to make renovations to an existing community facility to try and make a school space bigger in Trout Lake. It’s been some 15 or 20 years, I guess, since the school burnt down, but I don’t understand why, in that time, we could not have trucked a school portable from Yellowknife. Goodness knows, there’s a number of them that have been around that have been surplused. We could have trucked a portable to Trout Lake and they would have had a stand-alone school easily 10 years ago. It’s still something that concerns me. The Minister keeps saying that this is a temporary fix to the Charles Tetcho School, but where in the ECE long-term plan is a stand-alone school for Trout Lake? It’s going to be somewhere around $10 million, I imagine, to build a stand-alone school. We could certainly get a portable there for less than $10 million, I would think. I’m having big difficulty in understanding why Trout Lake is struggling to school their kids in a community centre.
I have to reiterate the concerns about the Aurora College campus in Yellowknife. I have to echo the comments of Members who have spoken already. It’s definitely something which is required, and again, I don’t see it anywhere in the department, certainly far the short-term plan. It may be in the 10- or 20-year long-term plan, but we need to have a facility planned for an awful lot sooner than 10 years down the road. It has been discussed for at least five years and there is yet to be any kind of a decent plan to try and get a facility where Aurora College students attending programs in Yellowknife can have an optimum learning environment. It just isn’t there right now.
I have a couple of specific questions. Maybe I will ask them here and then all the questions are out on the floor. The item for safe schools, minor capital upgrades to support lockdown procedures, I would question the Minister or staff to tell me what that is. Basically give me an explanation of what it is we are doing that is a capital upgrade to support lockdown procedures. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Yes, the budget has been talked about this afternoon, the $6.5 million that is there before us and we are working with it. Once it’s approved by this Assembly, we will move along with renovating those schools as highlighted.
Costs to the French schools that the Member alluded to is not there yet. We have some figures that were brought to our attention, but that figure could change once the court decision happens. So, we are currently waiting for that to happen so we can prepare ourselves as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Not only that, but working with PWS, because it has to be a coordinated approach, and working with the school board as well.
The JK renovations, we’ve been working very closely with the 23 schools where we are delivering JK programming. There are some areas that needed some minor facelifts, upgrades, that we are dealing with in our department. This 2015-16 is earmarked for $400,000 just to capture some upgrades that need to happen that we may not have funds identified within our department, almost half a million.
The Trout Lake school, I am fully aware of that. The committee requested a stand-alone school. We are currently doing renovations to Charles Tetcho School that would capture some of the spacing required at this time, today. When we talk about a stand-alone school, there is a process in place. Obviously it won’t happen next year, but there has to be a planning phase where a planning study needs to happen. That is part of our long-term plan, as I indicated in this House. We are moving forward on that and we will be engaging the committee leadership to hear their input as well. We’ve heard their input and now we need to engage with them even further.
Aurora College has been brought up as well. We are currently working with the college, the Board of Governors, on short-term and long-term plans. The main campuses, the 23 campuses, how can we best utilize the space that is required as well.
The safe schools, obviously there is a PA system that needs to be upgraded as part of the budget that has been highlighted. Part of that will be the lockdown, as the Member alluded to. That will be the PA upgrade in cases where there are issues at the community school level, so it is announced within the school system. Not all schools have a PA system. There has to be some sort of mechanism. Mr. Chair, those are some investments that we want to do into some of the schools that may not have the PA system or those that are outdated, to upgrade them as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro, you have a few minutes left on the clock.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. One thing I forgot to mention is this department, which is about 25 percent of our total operations budget, has $6.5 million in capital expenditures and the Department of Transportation – and I don’t know what percentage of our operations budget – has $112 million. So we seem to have a far larger priority on roads than it is on the education of our young people, in my mind.
I just wanted to say to the Minister that the Minister recognizes with the French schools that there’s a problem. He says he knows it’s coming. I heard him say earlier that he wants to move or the department wants to move forward, but what I heard is we know there’s a problem, we want to move forward but we have to wait and so we can’t do anything in the meantime. I just see that as a huge lack of planning.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I didn’t sense a question there, but I will allow the Minister to have one final word. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Again, the $290 million is over a five-year period. The DOT, yes, there’s a substantial amount there. Obviously, there’s a major road infrastructure that’s happening. We all know that. There’s a federal contribution as well. So we are putting in a lot more than what’s before us now, $6.5 million. We’ll make it work. Those are the investments going into the communities, and again, we have to plan for next year as well. Next year we obviously want to go after even more funding if at all possible. So those are just some of the discussions that we will have with the Peer Review Committee that has been established for a number of years now.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. We are continuing on with general comments. I have two more Members who want to speak. I know it’s late in the day. I have Mr. Blake and Mr. Nadli. I will go to Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was speaking to capital. I was going to commend the department, both Education and Public Works. They did a good job on a bunch of renovations to the school in Tsiigehtchic, mostly the gymnasium, and also in Fort McPherson preparing for Junior Kindergarten. There were some renovations to a washroom there. The school is very pleased with that.
Yet in Aklavik there were some renovations two years back but the community is wondering why there are no plans for a new school. This school is going on 50 years here. It’s not adequate to provide the proper programs and resources we can offer in today’s age. I know we are scheduled for a major retrofit or replacement in 2019. I would like to know if the department is planning to replace the old school. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Based on, obviously, the capital planning cycle, Moose Kerr School is identified for renovations or replacement in approximately 2019, as the Member has indicated. It’s based on the year of the school, whether it was the year it was built or the year it was retrofitted and 20 years from the date of the last major renovation. So we’re at that point. In 2019 we want to seriously look at Moose Kerr School in the Member’s riding. Thank you.
It kind of makes me wonder a lot of times. Referring to the school in Inuvik, we built a nice building there. Yet we didn’t add on other programs that could be provided. For example, shop. Looking at schools down south, they have a nice section there, three-bay garage and they can offer automotives in high school. Yet we build a $100 million new school that doesn’t have facilities like that. Those are the kind of programs I’m thinking of. We want our students to grow up, take on trades and be mechanics and welders, yet we don’t have those simple programs offered in our schools today. That’s why I want to know if the Minister will ensure the school will be replaced in 2019.
Again, with a process of 20 years from the date of the last major renovation in 1999, the Moose Kerr School will be up to be identified as either a renovation or a replacement. So that discussion will be happening. Part of the discussion that the Member was alluding to was will there be a physical fitness area or even a trace area, a shop. Those are discussions that need to happen with the school boards, as well, because we have to work with architecture and schematic designs and so forth and working very closely with PWS.
So those types of discussions, which we’re hearing today, will be part of our ongoing discussions as we move towards 2019, whether it will be a renovation or replacement of Moose Kerr School. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Last on my list for general comments I have Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll try to keep my comments as brief as I can. The department, of course, is the second largest in this budget and we’re seeing schools and, at the same time, languages and also training and income support initiatives. So, overall, I think the main concern that I express is the status of some initiatives. In particular the Junior Kindergarten initiative, perhaps if you could maybe term it JK versus Aboriginal Head Start program. I understand that that’s going forward, but I understand there have been some concerns in terms of how it is that that program would go ahead. I look forward to trying to understand the status of how that’s going and how those two initiatives could work together.
The other matter that I wanted to highlight is the JK and the Aboriginal Head Start initiative are likely one of a few steps that could be made in terms of trying to clear the disparity between how our students in the small communities perform in terms of their achievements versus students from the larger centres. That too is something that I’d like to perhaps see if there are any advancements being made to try to make the situation better so students in smaller communities could fare well in terms of their achievement tests.
In terms of languages, we all know that the language use is declining. The greater question is: Well, what are we doing now to address it? I mean, a common question more likely asked and I’d like to understand how it is the department is going to advance language initiatives.
Last but not least, I know a part of the language initiative is to support NCS and CKLB. I know CKLB, at this point, has downgraded their services, staff have been cut back in terms of working at the station and the programming has been affected. How is this department, through the Minister, been trying to remedy that matter and get CKLB back on the air? I’d like to know that too.
There are some communities that are trying to make advances towards working in the forest industry, and I think through Education, Culture and Employment training is an element that I think is key, and I’d like to know how this department will work in that area to help communities prepare their workers to be involved with forest initiatives.
Those are just some brief comments and some questions that I wanted to ask. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Although a lot of the items brought forward, Mr. Nadli, are operational in nature, I will allow the Member to complete his list. I will then turn it over to Minister Lafferty, if he’d like to address some of those concerns. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Obviously, my department has been working with Deh Gah Got’ie school and also the Head Start programming. When we first introduced Junior Kindergarten in that community, my department has been actively engaged with conversation with the organization because we wanted to make it work. There is a morning program and there is an afternoon program that I believe has been agreed to and currently it’s working but, mind you, there is always areas of improvement. We are very closely monitoring that, not only that but the other 22 communities as well. Obviously, we want to work closely together with Aboriginal Head Start, whether it be the council organization, because they deliver the federal programming. Federal program is only half a day, so I provide JK as an option, whether as a half-day or full-day Junior Kindergarten.
The Member also raised larger centres versus smaller centres. We are fully aware of that. Again, you touched on the programming itself. The whole Education and Innovation Renewal will embark on the small communities as equal in the program delivery as the larger centres, and they should be producing the same graduates as well. That’s what we’ve been told over and over, and that is our overall goals and objectives, to make that happen with the Education Renewal and Innovation, Mr. Chair.
The language initiative is very key within my department. That’s my we have established an Aboriginal Languages Secretariat that will deal with that initiative with the communities and with the regions for culture preservation and also our language. How can we promote even more of those? CKLB is one of the linkages to that. CKLB, as you know, deals with Aboriginal languages, communicating to the communities, and we have been active and engaged partnership in CKLB. We have provided our contribution on an annual basis and we are up to date on our contribution. The federal government, there is a bit of a challenge there. I am meeting with the federal Minister, Ms. Shelly Glover, on November 19th, and that will be one of the ticket items that I will be addressing with the federal Minister because this is a huge concern for me, as well, representing the Northwest Territories, that CKLB shall be back up and running.
The training, there is various training that will be happening. One of the Members alluded to the forestry industry, how we can best deliver that. Again, we need to work with Aurora College in this capacity. There is also School of Community Government training that happens as well. There are all these different venues that we have to make sure it takes place in the communities. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. If there are no more general comments, does committee agree to proceed to detail?
Detail.
Committee, I would like to turn your attention to page 11 in the capital estimates. We will defer that until after detail. Committee, page 12, Education, Culture and Employment, education and culture, infrastructure investments, $5.826 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, I would like to turn your attention to page 14, labour development. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question here with this CMAS Business Intelligence Project. It doesn’t indicate in the budget what program this is for, and I believe this project has been ongoing for a number of years. I just wondered: when will this project end? It looks like it is ‘16-17, but how much is going to be spent in ‘16-17 in addition to what we are spending this year? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that response we’ll go to Ms. Allison.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the CMAS, this portion is CMAS Business Intelligence and this program has been funded for three consecutive years, so it started this fiscal year. It continues next year and then it finishes in ‘16-17. This portion of CMAS is to provide greater reporting capabilities, and it’s application software that will enhance the analysis of operational data and improve decision-making. It provides a comprehensive business intelligence solution for program and divisional managers to help them perform strategic and management reporting. In the past we have had CMAS projects go forward but they had different deliverables with them, so this is the business intelligence module.
Thank you, Ms. Allison. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to further clarify, this part of CMAS applies right across the whole Department of Education, or is it specific to a certain area? That’s what I was trying to get at in the beginning.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Heide.
We have to understand that CMAS isn’t just one system. It’s actually a number of systems, probably about a dozen that are held together. The business intelligence tool allows you to look across these very different systems and apply some trending data, apply some rigor to some of the analysis that you can do across all the systems. So even though CMAS sounds like one system, it is actually you have income assistance in there, seniors’ fuel subsidy, daycare user subsidy, apprentice training and a number of other programs, so the business intelligence tool allows you to look across all these programs and make some good policy and program decisions based on good, accurate data.
Thank you, Mr. Heide. Again, committee, we’re on page 14, labour development and standards. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a quick follow-up to that. I see we have spent quite a bit on this last year and we’re planning to spend more. Whereabouts are we? Are we on budget with this or is the budget increasing on this project?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Lafferty.
