Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a couple more questions for the Minister. The first one is: how much is the budget for this position in the next fiscal year? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is that, if she is actually asking for the salary of a person, there might be some confidential issues on that. I am willing to meet with the Member outside the Chamber to define that more in depth, if she would like. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Let me ask this question in a different way. I am assuming that there is an office with an assistant, travel, contracting capabilities, and so on. The line item that is called "development of a polytechnic," how much is that budget for the next fiscal year?
I do know that we give approximately $32 million to the Aurora College at this point. They provide a plan for how they are using that money. I don't, at this time, have the exact figure that is for the associate deputy minister's office, including travel, et cetera. Again, I can get that for the Member.
Thank you to the Minister for that commitment. In order to increase transparency, can the Minister commit to creating a line item in the next budget which shows taxpayers what is being spent on the development of a polytechnic university?
I will take that under advisement. I can't make that commitment on the floor. I would have to talk with my colleagues in Finance, et cetera, to find out what is confidential, what is not confidential, and how we share that information. It is a little bit more complicated than I would like to make a commitment at this point.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. I was just digesting the information that was just given. I guess I am not understanding how spending on a government program could be confidential. It needs to be part of the mains, part of the program spending that we look at and review every year. I would like the Minister to make a commitment that she will make this information public, if not today, then shortly. Mahsi.
My understanding, again, and I am sure I will be corrected if I am not right, is that there are certain areas that we report on. There are other areas that we don't report on so in-depth because of confidentiality, such as line items. The commitment is that, the first couple of years, we will be developing an implementation plan to move us into a polytechnic university, and during that work, there will be financial targets that will be identified in that work, and then also looking at partners, not only us, but other partners also to find those resources. That will be part of the implementation plan, the money needed to move it forward, because there are more expenses than just a wage. There may be capital. We don't know. There are a lot of other things that we may be looking at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
