R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd be happy to grow that program. I can't count how many times, just talking to members of the public, they've said that, "My child didn't know what they wanted to do. They didn't have the courses they needed to graduate. I wish there was someone to help them." I've been able to answer time and time again that we now have that. We have a program that was only accessible to students in about six schools in the territory. Most students did not have that access to career counsellors. This program, we had six counsellors, and we added three more in this current fiscal year...

There are only two ways organizations become successful: strong leadership and dumb luck. I'm not going to bank on dumb luck, so I agree that we do need strong leadership. The current president of Aurora College, I believe he is doing an excellent job. Right now, we need to strengthen the foundation. There needs to be real organizational fortification, and that is moving along very well. I've been very happy with what I've seen. Once there is a board of directors, a board of governors appointed, then they will use their knowledge and their vision, frankly, to find a president who they believe...

I'm not sure under what premise the City of Yellowknife is operating. I'm sure they have a desire to have infrastructure built in the community. I mean, any community leader does. I expect that, but I think there is a lot of maybe confusion about what a university has to be, these days. A lot of people, in their minds, still see a big, single building made of brick with ivy growing up the walls and a big quad where students are sitting out in the sun reading, but that's not the way things are these days. With technology, you can have campuses that are spread out. When I went to university, I...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, on Wednesday, October 28, 2020, I will move that Bill 14, An Act to Amend the Securities Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One year ago, Members of this House made the transformation of Aurora College into a polytechnic university a priority of the 19th Legislative Assembly. Today, I would like to provide an update on some of the progress that has been made toward this goal.

Earlier this month, Aurora College released a three-year strategic plan, which sets out the vision, mission, values, and strategic direction that will guide the college's operations for the next three years and helps set the stage for key transformational changes. Two of the four strategic pillars of the new plan are...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Today, with me, I have Mandi Bolstad, director of corporate services, and Charlene Doolittle, deputy minister.

We have done an evaluation on the program. It shows positive benefits, and those are reflected in the numbers. The students who are participating in these academic courses would otherwise have to take them through distance learning, traditional distance learning where you get, well, back in my day, you got a pack of CDs and some workbooks in the mail, and you had to fill those out. The success rates on those types of programs is very, very low; everywhere, not just in the territory. The credit acquisition rate in the territory for Northern Distance Learning has been significantly higher...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are significant benefits to early childhood education, and I think everyone would agree to that. The fact that we have junior kindergarten, anecdotally, means that there have been some benefits to children across the territory. To the specific question about the data that we've collected, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has been collecting the early development instrument, the EDI tool, have been using data from that since 2013, and that includes the years since junior kindergarten has been in place from 2017. There needs to be a certain number...

It's an odd notion to treat addiction as a criminal matter, and so, I'm fully in support of diversion where we can and providing supports where we can. The GNWT has been providing alternatives to the traditional justice system for a number of years. Every year, we contribute $1.8 million to community justice programming which includes formal diversions. We have an annual priority established through a contract with the RCMP to prioritize diversions. A number of the sanctions from the community justice committees include things like counselling, cultural connection, and treatment.

The RCMP, as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the NWT-specific numbers, but I know that in Canada in 2014 is the most recent information I have. That's from a report prepared by the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. For every $32 million spent on healthcare, there's about $10 million for healthcare for substance abuse, there's a corresponding $10 million spent on enforcement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.