Debates of February 27, 2020 (day 10)

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. That is what we currently believe. However, I have told the House before and the committees before that this isn't necessarily about getting it done as quickly as possible so we can check boxes. It is about doing it right, and if things need to be pushed back by a season because we are not ready to start a capital project or something like that, or the legislation isn't where it should be, and committee might need more time to look at the legislation, I am willing to make those adjustments to timelines, but as it stands, a lot of work has gone into creating a timeline, and 2026 is what that timeline currently says, and that is what we are aiming for. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Are there any further questions on "Create a polytechnic"? Member for Monfwi.

Jackson Lafferty

Monfwi

Masi, Madam Chair. Obviously, this has been a critical issue since we first discussed it, a university of the North, a polytech university. We have existing challenges in our communities, I know Mr. Bonnetrouge alluded to on several occasions. He is passionate about it. Our own students are struggling in secondary schools, and here, we are talking about a university in the North. We have three existing campuses and 32 community learning centres. When you look at the three campuses, most of the programs are fairly empty, and it is been a real challenge over the years.

My view is that we should be building up on those three campuses that we have, instead of creating this polytech university, in my view, anyways, and then focusing on secondary schools. If we don't have graduates coming out of our high schools, what is the purpose of having a university in the North if they are not going to be attending?

Those are just some of the questions that are thrown at me as the Member representing the Monfwi area, and my colleagues, as well. They are getting similar messages. Madam Chair, I guess the big question that I have is this: creating a polytechnic university, is it realistic within this government? Masi.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As the Minister stated, it might not be in the life of this four-year term that we actually get it done. However, it is realistic to expect that we cannot hold back our people and say that we will not provide the services. The idea of building on campuses, that is what we have been talking about since I was the Minister of Education, since Minister Moses was the education Minister. We are not ripping it apart and starting from scratch; we are building on the strengths that we already have.

Then, Madam Chair, the third point is about what is the use of focusing on post-secondary when we need to focus on our secondary schools. Madam Chair, with due respect, when the Member was the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, he knew there were issues, as well. He didn't just focus on the secondary students. He was the beginning of bringing in junior kindergarten. If that Member was only thinking about the services in place now, he would not have thought about early childhood intervention.

We need to be holistic, Madam Chair. We need to think about early childhood development, having our children ready with developmental skills when they get to school, giving better programming from JK until 12. We are working on that now and, Madam Chair, also having opportunities and hope for our youth so that they cannot access every single post-secondary option in the world, but we have specialized programming in the North that is quality programming. Aurora College already has some programming that is actually proven to be quality. Our nursing programming, everyone I talk to is ranting about that program. Why would we stop? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Member for Monfwi.

Jackson Lafferty

Monfwi

Masi, Madam Chair. We have had tremendously successful programs over the years, and we continue to still see them. Great work has been done in the past. We are continuing to carry that forward. With this particular area, I obviously would like to know if there has been an actual survey of the students across the Northwest Territories on this initiative, if there is a favourable response from the public. I am not just talking about organizations; I am talking about the people of the North, if they are in favour of creating a university in Yellowknife.

We have three campuses. The Minister alluded to how we are building on top of the three campuses. Not if we are creating this university stand-alone campus and having three additional existing campuses. The social work program has been taken away from us. The recreation program is another one. These are just some of the programs that have been successful in the past, but there has been a lack of interest. We should have a clear idea why there is a lack of interest from the general public of the Northwest Territories. A lot of students are going south. We all know that. I went south for university. My kids did, too. If we go around the room here, a lot of our kids have gone off to southern institutions, for various reasons. One of them is the choice that they have.

We will have, eventually, according to the Minister and the Premier, a stand-alone campus here in Yellowknife, a university type, and the three campuses will still continue, but we are not really expanding on the existing campuses that we have, in my view, anyways, if we are strictly focusing on this polytechnic university over the next six years. Who knows? It could be the next 10 years, 15 years. We do not know because we want this to be a perfect institution in the Northwest Territories, in Yellowknife, Madam Chair.

I am not sure what else I can say about this particular area, but one of our prime focuses should be our students in secondary, giving them more opportunities for them to graduate grade 12 and even further, and give them options if they are going to attend our campuses here in the Northwest Territories or south, and building up on the three main campuses and 21 learning centres across the Northwest Territories. That is my view, and I am still questioning this very initiative, this mandate. We have raised that issue before, but obviously, a majority rules. It is here before us, and so we will be discussing it further. Just more of a comment, Madam Chair, at this point. Masi.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Are there any further questions? Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Frame Lake

Thanks, Madam Chair. I just want to go on record as strongly supporting this initiative. It is something that I raised in my first term, and I continue to believe this is the direction that we can and should be moving in. I think this is part of building a knowledge economy for the Northwest Territories. There are a lot of universities doing work here now. Laurier, Wilfred Laurier, has an office here in Yellowknife. We should be finding ways to build on those partnerships and including that as part of the polytechnic work that we can and should be doing in the future.

Our family, we have two kids who did go away to university. It would be nice if, when they come back here, they could decide that they want to be teachers, professionals, researchers at a university here. We have got to give more options to our kids who did take SFA, student financial assistance, so that, when they come back here, they have more options to get involved in post-secondary education themselves.

What I want to ask the Premier here is: as part of this plan, there are lots of lessons, too, that we can learn from Yukon College. Yukon College is going to become a university this year, and so I know that there is this advisory committee. I am not going to get the right name of it. I think there is representation on there from Yukon College. What sort of lessons can we expect to learn from Yukon College, that we can help out with the establishment of our polytechnic here? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Madam Premier.

Madam Chair, what I will do is pass it over to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to answer the question about lessons from the Yukon College. I would also like him to clarify, if possible. At no time have I understood when I was the Minister and this is a new Minister: is the university going to be in Yellowknife? I would like that to be clarified. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The university, as I see it, will be stretched across the entire territory, and I have a vision of it being in 33 communities. We do not need buildings physically right next to each other to call it a campus. Everywhere the university has a presence is part of that university. The model of a main campus is an outdated model. It is not something that I am focusing on in this Assembly. I was just down in Smith. They have a beautiful campus down there. It is huge. We need to fill it up. We have a campus here that needs some work, so we are going to have to do something about that. We have a beautiful campus in Inuvik. Again, we have to fill it up. There are learning centres in most communities. Maybe we can have them in all communities. We have got to think big.

I apologize. I know this is Member O'Reilly's time. The question is about Yukon College and lessons learned. The academic advisory council, it is still relatively young. I think there has only been the one meeting so far, unless there has been something very recently, but they are heavy hitters at these universities. There are presidents of universities, not just someone who works at a very low level. They are the top people, and they have a lot to share. They were chosen because of those reasons, that they have transformed into polytechnic universities, that they have a strong Indigenous component to them. I cannot give the Member the exact lessons that we are going to learn. I look forward to briefing committee at some point when people find time. I know it has been a struggle to get time to do those kind of things. At that point, I will be happy to ask the staff, who really can get into the details of that question, and they can relay it to the Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Frame Lake

Thanks, Madam Chair. I don't mind the Minister using my time to talk about good things. The one component, though, that I do not really see here, it is probably being worked on, is the need to get private donations, as well. Look, one of the discoverers of diamonds made the single-largest-ever donation to a university in Canada, $50 million to UBC; he also gave $32 million to Quest University, $5 million to Vancouver Aquarium, $12 million to Simon Fraser, $11 million to the University of British Columbia again. These are people we also have to approach so that they can leave a legacy here in the Northwest Territories. I am just wondering what kind of work we have done to look at philanthropy and partnerships in terms of building a polytechnic here. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will again ask the health Minister to expand on my answer, but I do want to state and I am not sure if I have told him yet, so I might be telling him, is that one of the diamond mines has already approached us. While I was the Minister, I was not adverse. I will take the support where we need it. The smart thing is to do that. That is the knowledge economy, the money we can bring in. On that, I will pass it over and let the health Minister expand if he so wishes, if the chair allows. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

---Laughter

Right now, we are in the phase where we are strengthening the foundation of the college, so that type of work, while there have been conversations, we have not aggressively been pursuing that, just because of where we are and that we do not have a regional needs assessment done to know what we are going to look like. We do not have our infrastructure assessment done. It is hard to go out and ask for money for a particular project when we do not have a particular project that we can show. That being said, there are the conversations that the Premier had in her former post, and there are other discussions that are going on. There is interest, and what I am looking forward to is promoting this transformation not just within the territory and getting people excited about it but around the country so that we grow that interest and we get that attention from different groups. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we have to make the most of it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Steve Norn

Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Mahsi cho, Madam Chair. I won't say too much about this, but I think I really need to get this off my chest. I am really, really so supportive. It is good to see that we are moving forward with education and advancing our education and talking about the knowledge economy and attracting investments. This is a good opportunity from that aspect. The only reason I am kind of conflicted about this, again, to what the Member for Monfwi said, a lot of our small communities, a lot of our students from small communities, I feel like they are going to be on the outside looking in. That, for me, is going to be hard. I think we need to do more from an education point of view to help transition our students into a polytechnic.

I know that other universities down south, back in the day, they had transitioning programs. They have a lot of Indigenous programs to transition a lot of Indigenous students into their universities and stuff. I am hoping to see some of that here to have that. Something close to home would be good instead of sending your students down south. This is something that would be close to home. Again, this is good. All round for me, this is good, but the only thing I am struggling with is just getting our students from the small communities in. I guess I had a question for Madam Premier, if there's any plans to having transition programs for small community students?

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Some of the things, I am going to try and be sensitive, but our youth are already looking on the outside looking in with what they have now. At least, this is going to give them, hopefully, some hope. We are working. We are not ignoring the children in JK to 12. We are working with them as well. A Pathways program is reaching out to children when they are in grade seven to try to give them options. The child and youth mental health workers going in four to nine to try to give supports for wellness. One other thing we haven't talked about is that in the last Assembly when I was the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, I also had concerns for our smallest communities. During my term, I made sure that our smallest communities, there should not be a school with only one teacher left in our NWT. During my term, I made sure that our smallest schools had at least two teachers in them to ensure that those children had the best chance possible at the time. Appreciate the comments. We cannot leave anyone behind is the goal. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Premier. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Steve Norn

Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

I am happy to see this news. I am hoping it is done in a very constructive way. Yeah, it is good to hear about the endowment fund. Hopefully, we see something like that. I guess my final comment is, if I ever win the lottery, I will chip in a little bit into that. That is all I have.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Member for Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson

Hay River South

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess when this first came up and there was talk about the foundational review, I was under the impression that it would be to take a look at Aurora College and make that stronger. Then, for some reason, it morphed into a university, and I am not sure why. I wasn't happy with that at first. Now I have looked at it. I have looked at it over time, and I look back at my life, I guess, because I did go south. I am proud to say I graduated. I went to my grade one to 13 here in the Northwest Territories, and then, I went south for nine years to school. Part of that was in Calgary, but the other part was in Butte, Montana, which is a small place. I went and we lived there for four years, and the Minister of education was part of that journey. It was interesting. There were a lot of people from Canada going there, people that I actually worked with, and that is why I am encouraging you to go there.

When we say that this may force our residents or our children or the young people to be on the outside looking in, but at least they get to look, and they can see what is possible. That is what we have to give them. We have to give them hope. The toughest part of school is getting in. Once you are in there, it is not that bad. We have to give them that hope. It has to come sooner or later, and it may as well be us that start it, or at least try to get close to completion. I think we are headed in the right direction. While we are probably going to be squabbling over head office. Who gets a new camp, possibly, and all that? I think we are probably going to see Fort Smith continue to be the focal centre with respect to administration and head offices and that. I am just hoping what we do is we don't hire people, "Okay. You are in charge of it, but you get to live in Yellowknife." We don't need that. We need people who are willing to be on the ground where the students are because that is what it is about. If you are not connecting with the students and you are in charge, there's a problem with that.

There is a lot of work to be done. We have been taking a bit of heat on it. At the end of the day, it is a priority of this Assembly. It is your guys' mandate. You guys pick the team that you want to lead it, and we have got to back you on it, and that is all there is to it. I guess there is no question. Just a comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Are there any further questions to "Create a polytechnic university"? Member for Deh Cho.

Ronald Bonnetrouge

Deh Cho

Mahsi, Madam Chair. One of the university question, Aurora College, all those create aspirations for the young at heart, young kids in the communities, some place they can go to in the North, some place close to home. I assume those are aspirations that they would have. I don't want to cut those aspirations off. It is probably inevitable that this will happen, but it may happen further down the road than we expect. There are factors that contribute to that. We heard from the Premier before that the federal government funds infrastructure, but they do not fund programming. With us being in a deficit mode and constantly raising our debt limit, are we going to be able to afford it? To staff it and to run the programs and to be associated with other recognized universities, that is going to cost a lot of money. Do we have the money for that?

Another big factor too, as my colleague from Monfwi alluded to, is the education levels in our small communities. I think we have got the majority of them on the outside here that don't have those education levels as in par with the rest of Canada. We have got probably a majority that through social passing up to grade 12, but anywhere from grades seven, eight, and nine. There are a lot of them that are up there. They are smart cookies out there. What is missing from the education in our small communities is the required sciences and the math because we don't have matriculation programs in the academic programming in our communities. We don't have chemistry. We don't have physics. We don't have biology. They are saying it is in distance learning but who actually is monitoring that? Where is the evaluation on that? I am a really big fan of evaluations to see if a program is actually working, and seeing who is taking advantage of it, and whether it is working for those people.

There is a majority out there who are going to aspire to hit any university. We have to fix that. That is what I have been harping on since day one when I got here back in October because it is just what it is. We are critically low levels in relation to the Yukon College, to a university, I don't believe they have a situation as the NWT because NWT, we have three large regional centres. One is Yellowknife. Two large regional centres that run Aurora College programming. That programming and those centres are very important to the two outlying communities, besides Yellowknife, because it is creating employment in those centres. Families have moved there. They have got a legacy; they have been living there forever. They are running hockey programs. They are running sports programs. These are all the educators who we brought in to the outlying communities to run the colleges. This is really concerning, when we are going to centralize the university in one place, because you have to think about the impacts that we are going to be leaving. We are setting up these communities to become ghost towns. It is already happening right now. I will tell you why it is happening right now. It is because the GNWT in the past has allowed to degradate the programming that was in the college and with the housing. I have seen that myself in Fort Smith. They weren't up-keeping or advancing or getting more programming moving North, concentrating on those centres and making them better places. We lost programming; we lost social services in those communities. I don't think they have a teacher education program there anymore. There could have been a lot more.

When I went there to continue my upgrading or whatever, I just say where is everybody? Everybody went south. They want to go south. Who doesn't want to go to school in Grand Prairie and Edmonton? That is what was happening. We were losing our own students because of not following our own policies with the GNWT for education funding, because some of the students were not allowed to fund their families in the communities to go to school in another community, where there are no student residences. They want to take their kids there because they have better education in the larger centres. We are not funding them for that, right in the territories. What we are doing is we are funding students to go take upgrading down South. That just doesn't make sense. We are not following any of our policies. That is what I have been watching from the outside for quite some time. You have to really think of that, what we are doing to the outside centres when we are going to make these decisions. I am not comfortable doing that, myself.

I did touch upon the programming and the funding that is all required, but I think we have to be cautious, throw caution to the wind, here, as we move forward. We can keep doing our studies and everything; we have to keep battling each other, saying, "No, no, no to this. We don't want it here. We want it over there." We have to join together for the future of the children of the Northwest Territories, but how we get there is a task in itself, and I would like to throw that caution to the wind for all to consider. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. I will give it to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to respond.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There was a lot in that eight minutes there, so I will respond to what I can. The Northern Distance Learning, the Member mentioned evaluations. We just had an Office of the Auditor General of Canada report that evaluated that program; they said it is great. We just had our five-year report on ERI; there are so many acronyms, I can never recall the name when I need to, but that showed success. I have testimonials from students, so that program is doing well. We are keeping an eye on it, and it is one of the bright spots when it comes to education.

The Member said we are going to turn the outlying communities, the ones outside of Yellowknife, into ghost towns. I don't know what the Member has planned, but I don't want any part of that. I am not turning Inuvik or Fort Smith into a ghost town. No one is centralizing a university in Yellowknife. There is no centralization of a university happening. The polytechnic university will not be centralized in Yellowknife. We are not creating a University of Yellowknife. I don't know how many more times, how many different ways I can say this.

We have a beautiful campus in Fort Smith. We are not made of money. We are not going to bulldoze a beautiful campus that has amazing facilities. We are going to utilize them. If it is the biggest campus, it is probably going to have the most students. We need infrastructure in Yellowknife, there is no doubt about it. I don't know if anyone paid attention to what happened in the last Assembly; I am not about centralization. I relate with MLA Martselos. I am about the regions. I am about the entire territory. We can't centralize; we are not going to centralize. We are not creating ghost towns. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Time has come, so are there any further questions on "Create a polytechnic university"? Seeing no further questions, committee, do you agree that we have concluded consideration of Tabled Document 12-19(2), 2019-2023 Mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories?

Speaker: SOME HON. MEMBERS

Agreed.

Thank you, Premier, and our thanks to the witness, Mr. Goldney, for appearing before us. Sergeant-at-Arms, will you please escort the witness from the Chamber? What is the will of committee? Mr. Norn.

Steve Norn

Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Madam Chair, I move that the chair rise and report progress.

There is a motion on the floor to report progress. The motion is in order and non-debatable. All those in favour. All those opposed. The motion is carried.

---Carried

I will now rise and report progress.

Report of Committee of the Whole