Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of ECE. Can the Minister explain how the department and the city are going to work together in order to finalize the access to Tin Can Hill as a university? And by access, I mean the physical access. We can talk about the getting Northerners into the university at a later day. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you. Minister of ECE.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. So there is a regulatory process, and the City of Yellowknife it is their regulatory process. And so officials are meeting with the officials from ECE are meeting with the officials from the City of Yellowknife to get an understanding of what that process is and the timelines involved with that. But it is through that process that the issues of traffic flow and things like that can be dealt with. And the college wants to be a good neighbour to all of the residents in the area. I can assure you of that. And we don't want to create a situation where there is, you know, concern in the neighbourhood or there's safety concerns. That's not the goal. The goal is to build a postsecondary institution to benefit the people of the Northwest Territories, not to cause disruptions in neighbourhoods. So as I said, the city is driving those that regulatory process, but as soon as we find out what that process is and we get some timelines, I'd be happy to share that with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister's comments and commitments to share with me. I do think that there's a lot that can be done to ensure that residents don't feel blindsided as we progress. And I just want to get that plug in for extension of 52nd Street so that School Draw and Copper Sky don't deal with the traffic coming out of the university.
My next question, though, is to do with the facilities management plan. It does comment in the plan that the community learning centres are going to be a key role in the future polytechnic as extensions into the smaller communities and tied to their regional centres of Fort Smith, Inuvik, and Yellowknife campuses.
So can the Minister speak to the fact that several of the small communities do not have a community learning centre, so how will those communities get that support or be an extension of the nearby polytechnic campus if they don't have a learning centre in which to operate? Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. And one of the goals that we set out with this transformation was to ensure that the college had a presence in every single community in the Northwest Territories. And that's not the case right now. What that presence looks like, that is what is being worked out. In a perfect world, there would be a physical space with appropriate internet connections and whatnot in every community, but this is a massive project and we're looking at improvements to the three campuses as well as a number of community learning centres. So it's not likely that every community will have a community learning centre, a physical space in the near future. But the college does want to be able to expand what they offer online so that if you're in a community without a community learning centre, you can begin your studies online and then perhaps move to a community with a community learning centre or to a campus community to complete those studies. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I almost thought I was going to get a commitment there for every community to get a community learning centre but the Minister is smarter than that. So I do appreciate the commitment on the access; however, that does bring up the lack of internet and computer availability and education within our small communities. I guess then that leads me to my question.
I sort of noted in this job if someone is not responsible for something in particular, no one seems to become responsible for it. So who within the organization of ECE will be the person that coordinates and ensures that the communities get those CLC faculties or at least have the access to that in the community? Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. So we're on a path, along with Aurora College, towards a polytechnic university. And it is going to be the college who is going to be making those decisions about access as we progress further. Once we have a board of governors in place, which I hope happens early in the new year, it will be that board of governors that will be fulfilling the mandate of the college and focus one of the focuses from the beginning has been ensuring access to college programs in every community. So it will be the board of governors who will be tasked with ensuring there is access in every community. Thank you.
Thank you. Final supplementary.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I know there were some controversy around the board of governors, but I won't touch that here today. I guess my last question is around how will the community learning centres be used to utilize or open up for other initiatives within the community? I had the great fortune of going over to Makerspace recently and seeing their space, and the big conversation there was not so much about always having the programming for people but having the space so others can execute their programming. So if the Minister could respond to that, that would be great. Thank you.
Thank you. And since we've made the changes to the Aurora College Act, I can't speak for the college, but we are working closely together so I can say that the college is open to working with community partners. There is a Makerspace up in Inuvik, and that is part of the college already. And so if there are other opportunities to work with third parties and their synergies, if there's space required and the college has that space, I know that they would be happy to make those connections when it makes sense. We all need to work together and pool our resources. Thank you.
Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
