Thank you, Mr. Nadli. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to support the motion brought forward by Ms. Bisaro and would like to thank the seconder for allowing debate here today.
Out of sight or out of mind, that tends to be the issue here with the Giant Mine issues as of late. I think the people of the Northwest Territories are still greatly concerned about the issue, but we only hear it from time to time and it’s paramount that we bring this forward here today.
As we have talked and heard that we are sitting on potentially the largest environmental disaster they say in Canada, I say in the world, and yet the world does not know the true issues that face mankind. I think it is paramount that we deal with this today and talk about the mechanisms of this motion.
What we have heard thus far from any of the teams involved is that we are dealing with a remediation plan, and I get it, but when you look at the fundamentals, the levers, the nuts and bolts of it, this is nothing more than a safety plan. I am not saying that we don’t need to do it – I think we have to do it in order to protect the safety of all the residents in the Northwest Territories – but there is very little mention about a recovery plan. I think this is something that is missed in the message. Having something in perpetuity forever, even if it is down to a hundred years, I don’t want this burden on my grandkids; I don’t want this burden on their grandkids. We have the power to deal with it today. We have the power to create dialogue to make sure we are not just dealing with the safety issue but that we are dealing with a full recovery issue.
It has been brought forward, I have brought forward that there is ingenuity all over in the world. In fact, we have patented technology here in Canada that deals with repatriating the gold that is in the tailings ponds. There is a process. It is Canada-wide. It talks about using high-pressure hydrochloric acid to get the gold out of the tailings ponds where, God forbid, we can actually repatriate this gold and use the proceeds to actually do the remediation work and do the recovery work, and yet this goes unnoticed. Why don’t we investigate it? Well, it’s not in plan number 58; it’s not plan 59.
We are worried so much about protecting bureaucratic jobs, worrying so much about protecting pensions out there, that no one is seeing the forest for the trees. Because no one wants to bring out that idea, because it’s too risky, we can’t talk about it. Let’s stick with the plan. I am saying, people, take the blinders off, both sides of the House, both the territorial and federal. Let’s find a solution out there. There are seven billion people in this world. There has to be someone out there who understands how to fix this problem.
Earlier last week Mr. Hawkins brought a motion or an idea to the table and we had to repeat his message countless times. Why? We don’t know why. Selective hearing maybe, I have no idea. It was a great idea, but yet we still have not received a formal reply from this side of the House. Which really basically says, will you take this idea over to your federal counterparts and talk about it? Nothing more. It’s not a promise. It’s not about spending our money. Well, I guess indirectly it is spending taxpayers’ money; we all pay taxes. But really it’s an idea that we need to foster and move forward.
This motion is broad-based and I appreciate its content, but it speaks to us doing something rather than sitting on our hands on an issue that affects everyone, and will affect my kids and their kids.
We have to deal with it. I support the motion. I have the opportunity to thank the Members here for allowing me to speak towards it. Thank you.
Thank, you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting this motion and I appreciate the mover and seconder for bringing this motion forward.
A massive amount of work has been done for a long period of time and is represented and boiled down in this report. The report says, “We have concluded, as a review board, that there are major significant impacts from this project.” They further concluded, not surprisingly, that there are major and significant public concerns, and they have, I would say, done a pretty good job of recommending measures to address those significant concerns and impacts.
What we have here if we fail is a tangled web of consequences and liabilities that extend across this country. The consequences are something we don’t want to consider; we want to avoid. I think this report goes a good ways in making progress on that front.
The first one is – and many of these issues have been spoken about and expressed very well from a broad range of interests and people and groups and so on, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation for decades – we don’t want an in perpetuity solution. That is not a solution. This report recommends shortening in perpetuity – that is infinity – to 100 years. Now, even that is a grievous undertaking, but it says no to in perpetuity. We want a solution implemented, and this board has recommended that and listened to the public, even if it is four generations and they also put in some review time frames every 20 years, so that is just about every generation. Let’s take a look and see if we can tune up even further.
They have said we don’t want to freeze it in place forever. That’s not a solution. That is a temporary stopgap. Albeit that may be acceptable in the short term, we want to find this permanent solution that actually deals with this massive and insecure storage of a highly toxic substance, in this case arsenic dioxide, a very deadly substance.
The funding, we have all seen programs come and go from governments. Here we are talking about in perpetuity. Now 100 years, several generations of funding. Where is the certainty that that funding is going to be there every year to do the due diligence we need to keep this situation secure and safe while at the same time we put in significant and meaningful effort into resolving it? This board addresses that issue of funding.
Oversight, my gosh, this grey hair – I didn’t have it when I started working on this, and I got grey hair at a young age. Ecology North was started because of this issue in 1973, 1971. I am so old I am starting to forget those numbers.
We need a public, independent and legally binding environmental agreement that governs our public oversight. This has been said repeatedly over and over again for decades. This board is recommending that they see the requirement to this.
Health effects on people, again – and I’m trying to personalize this – I and many others have been case studies of the health impacts of this arsenic and other heavy metal contaminants in Yellowknife. Other members of my family have been part of the health studies and so on. Many of our gardens have been sampled for soil contamination. Health effects on people is a big one. This board has addressed that in this solution, in this environmental assessment. Baker Creek goes right over storage chambers and presents a very high-risk situation because of the vulnerability of those chambers to intrusion by the Baker Creek. This is addressed in the environmental assessment we see before us.
The treated water quality and diffuser Ms. Bisaro talked to, and I and others have talked to at various hearings. Again, this assessment pays a good level of attention to those.
Impacts on traditional use, something that is often glossed over. Again, for many, many decades now, our Yellowknives Dene and other Aboriginal people, those staying in the area, had to travel for miles to get away from the contamination and do so to this day. Those are impacts that have not been properly discussed and they are called for. A proper discussion is called for by the board, the review board.
Community engagement, again, I have to say I was on a community engagement committee sponsored by DIAND, and it soon became very apparent that it was not going to be real engagement and I left in protest over that. That was again decades ago. Again, I very much appreciate the board addressing this point as well.
This is not a perfect report, but this goes a long way to indicate to me that this review board has done their work; they have heard people from a broad-sweep range of the public interest. They have heard the concerns. They recognize them as real concerns. As we have heard today, there’s probably no more serious environmental issue in Canada and perhaps a much wider geographic scale.
Finally, I would say, why are we doing this? The board has made the recommendations while we are doing this, unfortunately, because Ministers have a record of ignoring the recommendations of these review boards despite millions and millions of dollars put into these reviews, heart and soul of all kinds of people. The Ministers ignore these reports and say no, we don’t like that, we don’t like that. We negotiate with you and get you down on that one. It is sad, but that’s where we’re at. That is why we are at the table today saying, Ministers, endorse this report, get on with it, the people have spoken. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think I need to go too much further than what has been offered here already today, but I do want to make it very clear that I am certainly in full support of this motion. I am certainly glad that it is here today to discuss and hear.
I think that when we hear the narrative provided by people like Mr. Bromley, who in some ways is an historian on this particular issue, he has seen the passage of time on this particular project. He complains about his grey hair. When I started the Assembly, I had a full head of hair. See what this has done to me?
In all seriousness, the issue of how this is going to be a perpetual, ongoing monitoring project where the concept today, as I see it, has a passive solution. I think they’ve fixed it, they’ve tidied it up and they’ve swept it under the carpet. I think that Member Dolynny was quite right; if you don’t see it, it is not an issue. I think what is happening here is a lot of people don’t see the volume or magnitude of the problem. We hear about it. We hear the number. The reality is, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to a lot of people. Because it is buried under the ground, we don’t get to see it, we don’t get to smell it, we don’t taste it. It is not like the gallows are hanging over us every day where we can look at it and go, oh my goodness, watch out for that glacier of a problem. We don’t see it. If people were to understand, and I don’t have the right size to give you a sense of magnitude and I’m not going to try to pretend to say it is exactly like this, but if people could see and visualize that there is more arsenic there than, say, the court building downtown type of thing, people would be, oh my goodness, that’s a lot of arsenic. When the reality is something as minute as a sliver of a Bayer Aspirin could kill you and all of a sudden you’re looking at the size of less than an Aspirin to the size of a building and you think, is this what’s hanging over our head. It is that type of illustration that I think the public needs to be fully aware of.
The deciders in this case I think have missed the point. It is about what is best for the public. I think what they’ve done is they’ve decided what is best for administration, what is best for them. Yes, they may be doing a great job. I’m not going to suggest that they are not employing some of the best engineering and the best philosophy of today, but that is kind of like the issue I’ve been raising as of yet, is the fact that we are trying to solve yesterday’s problems with today’s technology, but today’s technology is nowhere near able to address these problems for the future. That’s why I believe strongly that innovation is so important on this particular one.
It is time, as the report has said even under Section 5.1 where they talk about wanting to have active research as a permanent solution to this problem. It is almost like saying once we’ve put this problem on ice, we will forget about it. By the way, that is exactly what we’ve done. INAC has put the arsenic problem on ice and it will be forgotten about and no one is going to pay attention to the $1.9 million of today’s dollars being spent under the care and maintenance of this problem.
Over 10 years ago it was $1 million a year of public money, of federal government money under DIAND stewardship, which is now under AANDC but federal government money at the end of the day. That’s why it’s so important to be relentless on this issue.
Mr. Speaker, to wait for technology to be stumbled upon I think is a mistake. It’s chasing a rainbow and just hoping it comes over to your area one day and there’s the pot of gold that revealed itself. I don’t believe that that is going to be the case. I believe the only way we’re going to find a solution for Giant Mine is if we actively pursue one.
I’d like to point out a section within the report, and at this time, Mr. Speaker, I want to give thanks to Mr. Kevin O’Reilly, who has provided me with some areas to focus in on. I really appreciate his passion and how he works so hard on these types of things. I do admire his ability and concerns and experience and, as I said, his passion. I don’t think we can underscore his passion and concern of the environment. There’s a clause here, or a chapter and a line here that I do want to point out. It says, “Many people of the public, including elected officials such as band councillors, expressed their concern that active research to identify a permanent solution is a necessary requirement of the project.” This isn’t this side of the House speaking. This isn’t me speaking. This is the public speaking about what they want. Hence, that’s partly probably why Ms. Bisaro has brought this motion forward, is because enough is not being done.
Today we need the government to adopt this report and then, even more so, take the bold and innovative step in implementing it and finding a solution. If we don’t do this, as I said earlier, the Giant Mine arsenic problem will just sit on ice and will long be forgotten. That, Mr. Speaker, is a big shame. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Members who brought this motion forward and articulated their concerns and the concerns that they’ve heard.
As responsible Ministers, we are obligated to look at what we’re doing, what we’ve done and the contents of that report. We’re going to do that. We’re going to do it in a very thorough way, and we will look at all the recommendations and there will be a response forthcoming.
In the meantime, that motion is a recommendation to government and we will be abstaining, but before I sit down, I do want to point out that I concur there has been an enormous amount of work done, time, money and effort by many, many people over a long period of time. This is going to be a billion dollar project. It’s one that we have to look at and deal with very carefully. We are well along that path. We all want to achieve the same end. We’ve got some further recommendations from the review board and we will give them very clear and serious consideration. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I will allow the mover of the motion to have closing remarks. Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I want to, first of all, thank the seconder, Mr. Nadli, for seconding the motion so we could bring it forward. I would like to thank all of my colleagues who made comments for your support. To Mr. Hawkins, the arsenic trioxide fits in a rather larger building. It’s the Bellanca Building, not the courthouse, unfortunately. So fill up the Bellanca Building and that’s our 237,000 tons of arsenic trioxide.
I appreciate Mr. Miltenberger’s comments that he recognizes the amount of work that’s been done. This motion asks that Mr. Miltenberger, and hopefully the federal Ministers as well, represent us properly by recognizing the work that’s been done is the right work. The report is thorough, the report is just, the report is valid. I exhort the Ministers to recognize the concerns of residents and that the concerns of residents have been addressed through the recommendations and suggestions in the report and ask again that they endorse the report and start putting the recommendations in place.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for a recorded vote, and thank you again to my colleagues.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Member has requested a recorded vote. All Members in favour, please stand.
RECORDED VOTE
Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Moses, Mr. Bromley, Mr. Yakeleya, Mrs. Groenewegen, Mr. Dolynny, Mr. Nadli, Mr. Hawkins.
All those opposed, please stand. All those abstaining, please stand.
Mr. Blake, Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. McLeod - Yellowknife South, Mr. Lafferty, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. McLeod - Inuvik Twin Lakes.
In favour, eight; opposed, zero; abstentions, eight. The motion is carried.
---Carried
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would like to continue with our consideration of Tabled Document 107-17(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2014-2015, and we would like to start with the Department of Education, and Transportation, time willing. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee agreed?
Agreed.
Okay, we will continue on with that. Please open your capital estimate books to section seven, Education. To open that up, we’ll go to the Minister of Education for opening comments.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I don’t have opening comments, but I do have witnesses.
Committee, do we agree we can bring witnesses into the Chamber?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort witnesses in.
Alright, Minister Lafferty, please introduce your witnesses to the House.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. With me to my left is Dana Heide, associate deputy minister with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment; and also, to my right is Tammy Allison, facility planning consultant within ECE.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Heide, Ms. Allison, welcome to the House. Committee, in my mistake earlier I said section seven. It’s section eight of your 2014-2015 Capital Estimates. With that, we will go to general comments. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome to the Minister and guests, witnesses here. I guess I just wanted to throw out general comments here because I’m very concerned about the paucity of projects and especially meaningful work and progress on many of the major issues we have on education infrastructure.
Less than 2 percent of our capital budget this year is dedicated to this department, our second largest department and probably one of the very highest priorities we have as a government in an area where we’re not shining, and we know we need to do what we can both in terms of how we do things and the places we do them in. Amazingly, this is the second year in a row. As low as this budget is this year, it’s even lower than it was last year. Albeit we ended up spending more than predicted, it was still very, very modest.
My big concern here is education, which this department is a critical department in many areas. Education is one of the very critical areas that it’s big in. If I look at the capital infrastructure budget for the education aspects of this department it’s hardly detectable. It’s less than half of even the less than 2 percent. So we’re getting down beyond the undetectable, or into the undetectable area.
You know, we’ll be bringing out some specifics, I’m sure, as we go into the details here, but I think there are major areas in every region. In my area in Yellowknife here, we certainly have been pushing some things with little action. They’re long overdue. Probably one of the biggest is Mildred Hall and, of course, probably Sissons is the biggest where again we’ve been talking about it for a long, long time and it’s a shambles. We’re now doing a planning study this year, but again, amazingly, my jaw dropped when I didn’t see any intent to act on the plan in this coming year’s budget. This fiscal year we are doing a plan and then we’re going to put it on the shelf and let it become dusty and out of date, I guess, for a while.
Again, this is not fully the fault of this Minister. I think it’s Cabinet that has come up with this very unbalanced budget. I guess I’ll leave it at that, and maybe in terms of a question for the Minister, what’s happening here? This is a priority, you have the backup of this Assembly. Why are we not more successful at getting a balanced capital budget and getting going on these areas that we have been lax on for so long to the point where education is being compromised because of an infrastructure situation that we have the capacity to deal with? I’ll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll allow Minister Lafferty to respond.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This whole capital planning process, we go through it every year on an annual basis. Some departments get a fair amount of projects and some don’t. It’s just the reality of it. We follow through with the process that’s been set as part of the capital planning process and all of the departments follow the government-established capital planning process. You know, I can just lay it out where the protection of people, the protection of assets, protection of the environment, financial investment, and also program needs and requirements.
This is also my priority as Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment. Every year we go through this. We push so many projects into our system and at the end of the day we receive a few of them. As with any other department that will be before you, it does fluctuate. I can state that over the last five years as the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, we’ve had upwards of $290 million projects over a five-year period. So we’ve done okay. We’ll continue to push those forward on an annual basis during the capital planning process.
I just want to reiterate that as a department, we’re very serious about all the capital projects that are before us and we’ll continue to push them through the system. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Mr. Bromley, any further comments? No. Thank you. With that, we’ll continue on to general comments with Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just in this year’s capital budget you do have a planning study for Trout Lake and their need for a replacement school. That’s how I’ve been approaching the community. The community has always said they want their own stand-alone school and they certainly do want to see renovations there. In fact, kudos to the community of Trout Lake, one of the fastest growing communities in the Northwest Territories. Many young families are moving back and that has resulted in many children now. They’ve actually got 20 in the school right now and those numbers are only going to increase in future years.
Just in terms of the planning study instructions, what direction would the department be going as they initiate their planning studies? And the same thing, too, that Mr. Bromley asked, okay, you’ve got a planning study, but the fear is that it will be shelved. I think a planning study is the assuredness of this government to move ahead with a project and I, too, want to see booked expenditures in future years for capital projects such as this.
Maybe the Minister can explain a little bit about how the planning studies and then how the capital actually gets on the books a bit there. I’ve used almost every leverage working on committees, Ministers, working with colleagues to try and make this a priority of the House and I believe that we’re getting there and getting a planning study is certainly something that the community is looking forward to, working with the department about just how they see the future of their school.
So, just those few comments. Maybe the Minister can fill us in and then I can certainly relay this on to the community of Trout Lake. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct; there is proposed funding for a planning study. That is to deal with the long-term needs of the school. So, it’s been identified in the ‘14-15 Capital Plan. Part of the planning study is to provide a review of the existing school that we’ve been talking about in this House for years, and the needs analysis of the school. Also the operational plan that will be identified to determine the required scope of work that needs to happen. From there we will be pushing through the capital planning process as we move forward. So, those are just some of the processes that we will definitely be going through. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Mr. Menicoche, any closing comments?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, I think the Minister laid it out there, but it still doesn’t squash the concern that there’s no capital in the future years upcoming. I think the only thing I saw in the books is 2018 or 2019, but I’d like to see it certainly moved up and the community would like to. So, if there’s any further remark, it would be that, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. With this particular project and other projects that are identified as part of the planning process, we will be going through the capital planning on an annual basis, of course, and the funding has been identified particularly for Trout Lake. Once that scope of work has been identified, we can put it into the system. Then the decision would have to be made from there. This will give us a tool to push that even further than where we are at now. Mahsi.
(Mr. Dolynny): Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Moving on with general comments I have Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also want to add some of my comments to Mr. Menicoche and Mr. Bromley’s comments to the Minister. As I have noted, the community of Colville Lake is looking at expanding, developing their young students, young kids, and looking at a proper education facility. I also noted those comments in this House that Colville Lake was going to be in the books for planning studies for a new school.
I have been talking to the leadership in Colville Lake, the chief and council. They are asking that for any type of planning studies, that the chief and council be 100 percent involved with the planning studies. They also want to help out with the construction of any type of school that they will receive. They want to be reassured from this department and government that the Colville Lake chief and council will be part of the planning study so they can feel part of the ownership. No different than the people in Colville Lake to build the $14 million dollar runway, done by the people in their own way.
They are looking at this project and looking at the planning study, that the department gives the commitment in writing and verbal tonight in this House that the planning study will involve them 100 percent in this process. After that, there will be another step to look at securing the funds to build. Even in saying that, they have talked to me and they say they could be a contributor to this process also. They are that confident that they would like to move this project for their community.
The issue of developing the Sahtu has been a long-standing issue of mine, and the Sahtu leadership over the years has known that we need several regional institutions in our region to properly develop our young people. We do have a high population of young people. As a matter of fact, in one of the GNWT’s stats and profile for the Sahtu people, in there I found it interesting that there are about 218 young people ready to work, who potentially have that ability right now. With the high interest and the oil companies coming in and working on our lands, it definitely shows that we need to get our people ready for these long-time careers, jobs, either in decentralization, oil and gas, possibly mining, or even self-government initiatives that the community want to take over. So the communities of the Sahtu region have been asking the government for a regional institute, because that is where the activity is going to be concentrated for the next five to 30 years if we get the green light to go ahead with the hydraulic fracturing operations. That is a long-time industry that will be in the Northwest Territories and we need to have our people be prepared for the trades, the academics, to help in the community. Any type of development in oil and gas is going to require some type of certification. Even with the development of the oilfields in the Sahtu region, they possibly will bring in some union organizations. The union is going to have to certify them. If development takes off, oil companies are going to contract the unions to handle their product. That makes for good business sense. The unions are going to hire people who are certified and trained and they are going to want you there.
In a good business case it makes sense to invest into a regional training institute in the Sahtu. That’s where it’s going to be needed and required. We should start planning for that, start building for that.
Right now our students go to Yellowknife, Inuvik and Fort Smith. If you want to learn trades, you have to go to Fort Smith. That’s where the institution is. That’s where the equipment is and it has been there for a while. At the same time, we want to have a training institute in the Sahtu. It makes it easier for families, especially the young families, and it makes good business sense to have it in our region. Partnering with the oil companies makes good sense. I believe they want that too. So I will be speaking on that.
The last point I want to make with our Minister here – I hope we can have some discussion between now and the next election – is looking at beginning a discussion on a regional high school. We have seen the numbers of graduates; we have seen the reports of the quality of education in our communities. Each community is fighting for something that they can have to improve their students’ education. We are spending a lot of money building trade centres, additional schools. I think it’s time now to have some discussion on the benefits of a regional high school, where the schools could possibly have their grades go up to Grade 9 and have a regional infrastructure building in the Sahtu that can go from grades 10, 11 and 12. Think about this again. It makes a lot of sense. Every school is always fighting for the dollars. Some schools are different from others. Colville Lake is certainly different from Fort Good Hope, Norman Wells, Deline and Tulita. All our schools are different. Even outside the Sahtu we have different schools, larger centres, regional centres and small schools. We’re not all the same. We are treated differently and we know that in the Sahtu, in the small communities, we know that we are treated differently. When I go back, people say, why can’t we have a biology class or a chemistry class. It always comes down to dollars and cents.
We don’t have the dollars, and it doesn’t make sense to have biology in all of the schools. Only certain schools you could, so then we are cheating our children out of good education. In order for them to go into a university program, even one or two students, we have to send them to a larger centre so they can take the required courses, the really true required courses to enter into a profession of a doctor or a nurse. I want to leave it at that, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the Member for bringing up some of the areas, whether it be a concern or ideas and suggestions. First and foremost is the planning process obviously would consist of community involvement, DEAs and DECs and also leadership. We did receive a correspondence via the MLA from the chief, asking how they can be part of the process. By any means, we want them to be involved because it will have a positive impact into the community and they need to be part of that. So we will be involving the DEAs, DECs, leadership as well.
I agree with the Member that the Sahtu region, with the economic boost that is happening, there are a lot of activities that are coming. Obviously, we need trained personnel, trained community members. A regional training institute has been brought forward in this House and also in my conversations with the Member as well.
We are working closely with the regional training committee that has been established to identify communities’ needs and a five-year plan. That has been discussed. We will be moving forward on that based on those needs, and working closely with the community, the leadership again. As we move further along, we will identify what kind of training is required. I will be working closely with the Member on this particular file.
Just for Members’ information, my department will be going to Colville to talk further on the school itself in November, next month, to move things along so it is not at a standstill. I have committed already that we need to move on this.
Regional high school, this is an area that we have done in the past for establishing a regional high school in the region based on the wish of the communities, the wish of DEAs and DECs and also, again, leadership, that we need to work closely with, if that is the wish that we can work with the communities, the region. Some of the programs may not be offered in isolated communities, such as biology or chemistry. We are learning fast. There is e-learning that is happening in the Beaufort-Delta. I believe that is the way to go now as a short-term measure at this point, and could well be part of the long-term, as well, that we need to take advantage of to deliver. As yourself and other Members have been to Beaufort-Delta and witnessed the e-learning, it is a spectacular program that we need to take advantage of. That is what we are pursuing and I will keep the Members up to speed on the process. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Continuing on with general comments I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to reiterate some of the comments that I made in some of my general comments to the budget as a whole. Like Mr. Bromley, I’m extremely disappointed in the amount of money that we are putting into education in this capital budget.
I want to focus a bit on some of the projects that are not there. I mentioned those in my general comments to the budget as well. In June of this year, committee received a document which outlined the 20-year needs assessment from the Department of ECE. I appreciate that that document hadn’t gone to FMB and the capital budget had not yet been determined, but in looking at that document and looking at only large capital, because there is small capital and large capital and I’m looking at large capital, so school renovations and new schools, additions and so on, there were five schools in the document that committee received in June: Sissons, Lutselk’e, William McDonald, Mangilaluk School and Chief Jimmy Bruneau. They were all on that list as being a priority of the department for renovation, addition, replacement, whatever, but they were a large capital project. So, you take that list and you compare it to the list that we are looking at here in this budget for Education. There are no large capital projects for schools in this budget. There is one large capital project and it is a software project. It is a CMAS replacement or upgrade, whatever it is.
I have great difficulty understanding how we can have such a variation in documents. From June to October, in five months’ time, we have lost five major capital projects for schools. If these are important and priority projects for Education, Culture and Employment, then there is something wrong with the way the department is asking for these things to be dealt with. It’s a priority in June and they are nowhere on the list in October.
The one school that is in both places – and that is the Colville Lake School addition – in June it was going to be an addition. There was construction money in the budget. In this particular budget there is money for a planning study and then there is no construction money, so we are going to plan for the addition or replacement of Colville Lake School, and we will do the planning, but in 2015-16 there is no money in the budget, that I can see, where we are going to start construction.
I’m really concerned that what Education wants to do and what gets into the budget just do not jibe, from what I can tell. I am concerned that schools across the territory are missing out. We have projects that are on the list now that weren’t on the list in June. We have all these projects that were on the list in June that are not anywhere on the list now and I fail to understand why.
Sissons School, for instance, in June it was down for a renovation and addition starting in 2014-15. You look at this budget that is before us, you don’t see the words Sissons School anywhere in the education and culture activity in the Education budget. So in five months’ time, Sissons has disappeared off the map. Even if Sissons was on here and was planned for two or three years down the road, that would be helpful, but it’s not anywhere that we can see.
That is what I wanted to focus on. If the Minister can enlighten me as to how things can change so much in five months’ time, I am all ears. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Again, we do go through a process. Members alluded to various projects in the riding and also other ridings. All of those have been submitted. At the end of the day, we get some projects earmarked or approved as we move forward on this particular planning process. We have to, like all the departments, follow through the guidelines that are set before us.
I will get Ms. Allison to just give us a detailed process because she’s actively involved with all the projects that are going through our department along with the process itself. If I can allow Ms. Allison to elaborate, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Allison.
Mr. Chair, with the capital planning process, our department does identify the requirements as we see fit, based on the building’s age and based on consultation that we receive annually from our building users. When we are identifying them across the 20-year span, the thing that it always comes back to is the ranking of the projects, whether it’s (a) protection of people, (b) protection of assets, (c) the environment, (d) financial investment and, finally, (e) program requirements. Unfortunately, when we came to the table with the capital planning, our projects didn’t come to the top. As the Minister spoke earlier, definitely we have had some great success in the past five years and 10 years.
The one thing I would like to point out is with the planning study, you will not see the approval or the funding for the future years. So if you have a planning study funded for ’14-15, you won’t see the funding in ’15-16, ’16-17 to carry the project through, because once you finish that planning study, you then have to go back through the capital planning review and then you would see it secured in the plan, just for clarification. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Allison. General comments. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of brief comments. I know we have a long way to go here for the education system. Some things I would like to see in the future budgets are proper facilities for extra curriculum; for example, automotive shops in our smaller communities. I was very surprised, as I mentioned last year, we are building a multi-million dollar school in Inuvik, yet we didn’t include a facility or a portion that had an automotive shop in there. I know they do have a small engine shop that’s nearby, but times have changed and we need to offer these programs to get our students encouraged in different fields.
Also we had the opportunity this spring, when we were touring with the Wildlife Act, to visit Nahanni Butte. I was really surprised. I thought it was an office building that was their school. A small building that had I’m not sure how many students in there. I just briefly went in to say hi and give them some Tim Horton’s. We need to upgrade our facilities.
I feel very fortunate that in the riding I represent we have three schools and one is near being replaced even though it’s not on the wish list. I just wanted to make those brief comments. I think they need to start planning ahead here and offer a lot of courses that are really lacking in our schools right now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
