Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today the honourable Member from Nahendeh talked about the fine work the Standing Committee on Social Development has done on the foundational review, and it makes me reconsider some of the Education Minister's comments from last week.
I wonder if he can answer this for me: what does he think the role of the standing committee is? From his statement, he seems to not address the fact that they are working on his timelines to provide the required advice. Further, he has gone on record saying that there was little agreement on what to do with the teacher education program and social work program. There was plenty of agreement on this side of the House: preserve the program and make it work. What is the role of the standing committee in this process, Mr. Speaker? Is it to blame it for delays, or is it to actually work with it to get results? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, there have been some delays in the correspondence back and forth, but we take all of committee's recommendations and suggestions seriously, and we do want to work with all Members in this Legislative Assembly. It is not us versus them. We should all be working together in the best interests of our residents, in the best interests of our students, and of the people that put us in this House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We are trying to work with the Minister on this process. Everyone on this side of the House, when we get surprises like eliminating the Aurora College board, with delaying a mandate commitment that has been a mandate commitment from day one, there is a bit of consternation on this side of the House. The mandate makes a commitment, again from day one, to have a renewed strategic plan, some sort of plan for Aurora College. Will that work be done by the end of this term?
As I mentioned, we are going to get this foundational review. We set a timeline for March 31, 2018, and from that review, we are going to create a departmental response. We are going to share it with committee, we are going to share it with all Members of this Legislative Assembly, and as I mentioned, we are going to be working on a strategic plan going forward for the next 10, 20 years.
I think the students expect more than just a plan. They want these programs to be retained, and also our own Skills 4 Success document wants these programs to be retained and effective. We need change now, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask if this contractor the Minister has hired has any experience with transforming educational institutions towards vocational skills, like taking a community college and turning it into a polytechnic or an institution of higher learning. Does this contractor have any experience with that, or are we just looking at an accounting review?
As I mentioned earlier, as a government and as a department, we do support our students, whether they decided to get their education here in the Northwest Territories or outside the Northwest Territories. We want to make sure that all our students who are taking post-secondary education have that opportunity to succeed, and we are going to continue and commit to making sure that our students have that opportunity.
As we were discussing with our contractors, we are going to be working very closely with them. They will be working very closely with the college to ensure that, when the review is done, it is going to be something that is going to be in the best interests of not only the government, but our partners that we work with and residents of the Northwest Territories, to ensure that we have the best programs and best services in place to make sure that our students succeed. After all, it is about the students. It is about our residents.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is pretty clear it is question period, not answer period, because again, the Minister is not providing answers. My final question: I am going to ask if the Minister could take responsibility for these delays personally and back off the approach he took last week of blaming the standing committee for holding up the process. Will the Minister personally take responsibility for these delays and acknowledge that this work has been delayed since day one? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This is a consensus government. We all have input into this in working together. If the committee has concerns, we can sit down and we can share some of these e-mails back and forth. If the Members of committee are concerned, we can also table some of our back-and-forth discussions just to make sure that the public understands the process of how we have been going about this foundational review and the timelines that we are trying to make and set. As I mentioned, this is consensus government. We all have a role to play in the decisions that are made in this House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
