Debates of October 19, 2016 (day 33)

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and what we want to do is provide a safe, healthy environment for the students to learn in, so when there's renovations going on one part of the school that we'll be having the children doing the work in another safe part of the school, and then in the second phase there would be students on the other side.

I believe when we're looking at the building and the retrofit of Charles Tetcho School that we're going to try to get it at the end of spring, right at the end of the school year so a lot of this work can be done in the summertime, and there'll be less disruption to classroom times so a lot of it will be done over the summer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.

Shane Thompson

Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for that answer. Could he elaborate a little bit on the addition of the 390 square metres on this space that's going to be used to redevelop besides the retrofit? I understand that part, but there's an extra 390 square metres that are being renovated. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and just in addition to my last comments that when we go in in November we'll be trying to get that information and some of the concerns that community might have in terms of when the construction happens, but the project will provide additional instructional, as well as research and support space for the students and staff population, and also includes an additional classroom and a language and culture classroom that'll add approximately 1,300 square feet of additional space. If the Member wants me to get him the list of what it's going to include in it. But that'll be presented in November at the community meeting. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.

Shane Thompson

Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister. I'll look for the commitment or the update after you give it to the community. I don’t want to be disrespectful to the community and work with them, so after that meeting they can maybe share it with me.

Now, I guess I'm going onto a bit of a wish list or what is not in this, but when we're talking about learning centres and that, and one doesn't fit all, so some of my smaller communities are looking at utilizing the school to use a learning centre. So part of this question there that that Minister is talking about has this been part of it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The survey that I was mentioning and talking about earlier just in reference to junior kindergarten, but I think moving forward I think with learning centres and using the shared space is something that needs to be looked at moving further in terms of constructing schools or adding additions as well, especially in our small communities. We've got to be able to utilize the space the best we can.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.

Shane Thompson

Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister and again I apologize and I realize we're talking about 2017-2018, but I'm hoping that when you guys start doing this junior kindergarten because I realize we're utilizing that presently in my region, so if when you're talking about the survey you can start talking to them about learning centre. So I guess it's just about it's just a bit of a comment, and I thank the Minister for his answers. That'll be all, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've been listening carefully to what the Minister and his staff have said about getting federal support for schools, and that's important, and collaboration and so on. But I want to continue to try to engage him on Ecole Allain St-Cyr expansion. This schools in my riding. I'm getting an enormous amount of complaints about the inability to work with the department in a collaborative fashion. People are stopping me in the streets, I'm getting phone calls, e-mails. Most recently I had somebody stop me on the ice while I'm playing hockey to complain about this. So something is wrong here, and I don’t know exactly what it is.

I'm wondering can I get the Minister to commit to meet with APADY, CFSTNO and the interested Yellowknife MLAs to talk about this proposal that's going into Heritage Canada and how to make sure that this goes in in a collaborative manner that meets everybody's needs. This has a potential to be a win-win for everybody and could save us money. So is the Minister committed to work and have a meeting with all of these parties soon to try to sort this out? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and we can't look at a meeting on that subject and that proposal; however, the proposal that’s going in is what meets our criteria for our standards in building schools for the population and the enrolment rates of that school. I mean, if the Member wants to talk about putting in a glamorous proposal, working together, we still don’t have that schematic design, and we need that design if we want to work to get more funding from Heritage Canada. That's the next step before we can start seeing how we can look at getting access in the federal funding.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think I'm getting closer here. Is the Minister prepared to have this kind of a meeting where we sit down, everybody can understand better what this Heritage Canada funding program is all about, what's already been submitted, whether there's the ability to change this, whether there's the ability to get letters of support in, and how we can work together on this to get the best possible proposal in and maybe even save us some money. Is the Minister prepared to have that kind of a meeting? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister.

Yes, I have committed to sharing that proposal with the parties, and as mentioned in the House earlier, but we've got to get to work too, you know. We've got that court order to build a gymnasium, to build the two classrooms, and then we looked at the two additional classrooms, because we saw the enrolment rates going up, but we can't not miss a building in a construction season. So we've got to get to work at the same time, meeting our court order, our obligations. But we will share that proposal with the francophone community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'm glad to hear that the proposal will finally be shared with the folks that took us to court. Look, I don't want to delay construction of this, nobody wants to delay construction of this, but we have an opportunity to get more money to do it right from the beginning, I mean maybe even save us some money. All I'm asking is the Minister willing to meet? My colleague had the same discussion on the floor of the House earlier and I'm prepared to go that route, but is the Minister prepared to commit to have a meeting like that soon so that everybody's on the same page in terms of moving forward with this proposal to Heritage Canada? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We can meet but I mean, as I mentioned, that we're meeting our standards for construction of capital projects and the court order. In terms of the proposal going forward, as I mentioned, if you want to add the cultural side of things and add things, which is unique because it's only the French schools that can access that funding, we need to ensure what those additions are, and we can't get the specifics until we have that schematic design. I am willing to sit down with the Member a little bit later and give him some ideas on what we can do in terms of next steps as well.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. So I've got can meet, meet with me. I'm just asking if the other folks could be in the room at the same time? Is he prepared to go that far? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister.

We could meet all together, but I was going to talk to the Member aside and just give him a little bit of other updates on some other things that was happening behind the scenes in terms of some of the work that our department has been doing to move forward on the process. If we have that meeting, we're just going to be talking about what we proposed in terms of our court obligations as well as what we're developing in terms of our standards.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. In the interest of moving this forward, I'll meet with the Minister. I'm prepared to meet with him anytime. But I continue to get communications from constituents. We got a letter most recently from APADY dated October 12th complaining about how they're not involved in the submission that's already gone in. I'm happy to meet with the Minister, but clearly this is not going in the collaborative fashion that our government should be moving forward on. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Minister, I see a commitment to meet together, not really a question but go ahead, Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our staff did meet with APADY on October 7th and we did share with them our schematic design. As I mentioned and as my deputy minister, Ms. Haener has also mentioned, there's been a lot of meetings that have been happening as well. So we did give that design, in terms of what we're going to be doing with our court order, to APADY. Any feedback that they did have, we're still awaiting that feedback as well. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Thank you, colleagues. Going back, page 10, Education, Culture and Employment, education and culture, infrastructure investments, $14,454,000. Does committee agree?

Speaker: SOME HON. MEMBERS

Agreed.

Moving on. Page 12, Education, Culture and Employment, labour development and standards, infrastructure investments, $9,157,000. Looking at detail on page 13. Questions? Mr. Testart.

Kieron Testart

Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm interested to know more about the heavy equipment operator facility for Aurora College. We've been told that Aurora College is developing its strategic plan and that, you know, the repurposing of this to a vocational school, which is why it's housed in Labour Development and Standards, is the intended course. But the strategic plan is not yet completed.

So are we developing capital for the college under the old strategic plan, under the old purpose or are we waiting to invest in whatever we want the school to become? It just seems odd to invest major capital into a program that may in fact change as that strategic plan is developed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Mr. Minister.

There was a lot of things that aligned in terms of this project coming to fruition. The Post-Secondary Institute Strategic Investment Fund, they put out a call for the amount of I think $3 billion, and we took the opportunity to see if we could access that funding. On this specific project, it is a 60/40 split, we're covering off 60 per cent of the program. In terms of the heavy equipment project itself in Fort Smith, they already run a program. This funding will help upgrade the garage for both practical work as well as in-classroom instruction.

Also with our Skills 4 Success Action Plan, when you look at the jobs that are outlined in that as well as our labour market needs assessment, that a lot of it is heavy equipment operating. So that's the investment that we made. We took an opportunity when we saw the federal dollars that had come out and we were very lucky to be successful in getting those dollars from the federal government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Testart.

Kieron Testart

Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that comment and that is in line with what my expectations are for some of the strategic decisions we're making around Aurora College. There are more than one post-secondary education institutions or programs in the Northwest Territories however.

My understanding is that Dechinta University has been in discussions with federal officials and federal ministers about investing quite a substantial amount into a facility for their purposes. Does the Minister know of their funding proposal? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Mr. Minister.

Yes, we were aware that they did put a proposal in at the same time that this Institution Strategic Investment Fund came out, and we were aware that they did put a proposal in as well.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I'm allowing one more there, Mr. Testart.

Kieron Testart

Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will yield the balance of my time until tomorrow. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Recognizing the time, noting the clock, committee members, I will now rise and report progress. Thank you, Minister Moses and Ms. Haener and Mr. Lovely. Sergeant-at-Arms, would you please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber.

Report of Committee of the Whole