Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Fort Smith is home to some of the oldest school infrastructure in all of the NWT. Not only that, but Fort Smith is also home to three buildings with a residential school legacy and all of them are still active in use today. The three buildings I am referring to are PWK High School, JBT Elementary School, and Breynat Hall at Aurora College. To be perfectly clear, all of these structures are either former residential schools or former federal Indian day schools, and they're the only remaining of such structures left standing in the NWT.
Mr. Speaker, JBT was built in 1958 and officially opened in January 1959, which makes it 65 years old. Originally, it was a federal Indian day school with students from multiple nearby communities until the building was purchased by the Government of the Northwest Territories in 1969. After that, the building was converted into an elementary school which is, to this day, being used for the purpose for students of Fort Smith.
In addition, the former Grandin College was built in 1962 and was run by the Catholic Church as a residential school until 1971 when the Government of the Northwest Territories bought the buildings and converted them into PWK High School. Since then the government has continued to use the old Grandin College residential school buildings for the high school in Fort Smith.
Mr. Speaker, the link between federal Indian day schools and residential schools have already been firmly established by the academia and the testimonies of survivors from both systems; therefore, both these facilities carry a heavy history of abuse and colonialism that cannot be ignored. We know that both systems caused a lot of damage to many of the students who attended these schools. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
Unanimous consent granted
Lastly, Mr. Speaker, these schools are 65 and 60 years old respectively and are in serious need of replacement. For these reasons, I am once again calling upon our government to begin the process to replace and decommission these two facilities.
Two years ago, I tabled an ECE document entitled NWT's Schools Capital Needs Assessment Summary. It was dated April 22nd, 2003, and listed all schools in the South Slave, the year each was constructed, the year of the last major renovations, and the year that it should be reviewed to determine if a replacement is necessary. According to that document, JBT was scheduled to be replaced in 2018 and PWK was scheduled to be replaced in 2020, but neither has happened despite the age and history of both schools. I do not agree with that. So I am hoping that our government takes notice and will work with Fort Smith to replace and rebuild new schools for our community. I will have questions for the ECE Minister later today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Members' statements. Member for Hay River South.
