Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned in my statement, I cut back on the questions here because I see a lot of answers in the Minister's statement for Education, Culture and Employment, and I was very impressed by the contents of that statement, which I will share with the Sahtu leaders. I see renewed vision in this statement, and that leads me to my first question, Mr. Speaker. In preparation for community engagements to the post-secondary framework final vision and goal, when is this material going to be made available? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We just finished collecting the data. I believe it was at the end of March, actually, that the survey was finished. We're compiling it. It was pretty open-ended, so it is a lot of work, actually, to get the 750. It wasn't just ticking off boxes. They were open-ended questions. We are compiling that now. We will be providing it within the next few months.
I feel that the best way of working in consensus government is actually working with committee. What I am proposing, and I haven't actually, but I'd be sending a letter to committee and asking them to meet with them to be able to look at the draft framework prior to, actually, a finalization. The more we work better together, the more effective our framework will be. You can expect that within the next couple of months, that I will be sending a letter to committee, and that we will be bringing this forward to do the work that we need to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My next question is: is the Minister willing to make herself and staff available to, in the absence of this framework material, have engagements in Sahtu communities?
We do have regional representatives who are in the Sahtu who can actually make themselves available at any time that the MLA would like them to go in and to approach their community. Myself, though, as a Minister, might be a little bit tougher. I would have to check with my staff. My last review of my calendar says that I am booked up, and in fairness, I have even had to talk to other MLAs and say that I can't do constituency tours for four or five days, because I don't have that. I am working day and night and weekends now. We have a lot of work to do. I am willing to be available if I am available, but I don't think that I have more than one day available in my calendar per week going forward.
Thanks for that reply. As mentioned earlier, if the Minister's party will include the Minister and staff, if the Minister is taken out of that party there, will the department heads look at travelling dates to the Sahtu communities to pass this message on? I see nothing about renewed vision, as I mentioned earlier, and getting that communication out to the communities is the gap that we need to fill in excelling the aspirations and good feeling of our students. When will the Minister make her staff available?
What I am hearing in that statement is that we are not doing a good enough job of actually getting out there and letting communities know. I do apologize for that if that is the truth. We do have regional representations. I will mandate that they actually get into the communities. All of them, not just the Sahtu. All of them should be going out and talking to Indigenous governments, municipal governments, principals, teachers, superintendents, et cetera, to be able to promote and answer any questions on their programs. If we are falling behind on that, I will make sure that that is a priority of mine, to make sure that our regional reps are getting into the communities and doing their jobs.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to working with the Minister on a proposed schedule of dates and the individuals. Will the Minister commit to doing that, as well, so we can take advantage of the end of the school after graduation month in June, so that the message could come from the Yellowknife head office to the smaller communities? Thank you.
I will commit to working with the MLA, but I also will commit to actually challenging the MLA to come to me and explain to me why, in his opinion, not on the floor here, but in his opinion, that our regional directors don't have that ability, because that is what their job is. I am willing to meet with the MLA and discuss why it should be that headquarters would have to go into the regions versus the people whom we have hired to do that. It might be a bigger issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
