Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement today, I’m very concerned about the condition of the Diamond Jenness Secondary School and where it is in terms of this government’s priorities — a year of new school openings and some very large budgets, shall we say, to go to address the needs of educating students in other communities and other regions. Could the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment please advise what the status is of this government addressing the substandard conditions at Diamond Jenness Secondary School?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, those are the issues that have been addressed. We did visit the community school. Thanks to MLA Groenewegen for giving us a tour, and also to the principals. That’s part of the capital projects that we will be discussing over the next few days here. There is an education plan underway as well. That is the ongoing work that is happening between our department and PWS. Those are the discussions that will be undertaken here in the House on the capital projects.
I do thank the Minister for attending the school in Hay River with us and going on a tour of that facility. As a result of those visits, though, we were told that the Diamond Jenness Secondary School replacement or renovation had been red flagged. I understood that to mean that it had been designated as having some significant priority in the list of capital demands that this government is dealing with.
I’d like to ask the Minister: when we were told red flagged, what did that mean?
Those red flagged projects in the past have been targeted as one of our priorities. We have those existing projects in the communities — the schools that are being built, the schools that are being renovated or worked on. Those will be the committed projects. The red flags are other projects waiting on the list. Hay River’s Diamond Jenness School has been targeted as a priority for this government to initiate work on that part of the renovation. It will be part of the discussions that we’re going to be having on capital projects here in the next few days.
One of the things that has precipitated some immediate action on the part of this government with respect to capital infrastructure for education has been catastrophic events like fire, flood, collapsing roofs, things like that. The only thing that has come to light in Hay River which caused the closure of the school on a temporary basis was air quality. There were air samples taken and sent down South, and it was eventually determined that the school was safe to reopen.
I’d like to ask the Minister: has he actually seen the results of those air quality tests, and would he be willing to table them in the House?
On the air quality tests that were initiated by PWS, the report has been done. It has been shared with the Member, I do believe. Maybe I’m mistaken on that. Certainly, those reports were taken into consideration when we were going through this process as being a priority project. I personally, as the Minister, have not seen the document itself. It’s within the Department of PWS. I need to sit down with the Minister of PWS to go through the actual results and the information.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I could be corrected, but I believe that the Chair of the education authority had asked to see those actual reports, and I had asked too. Perhaps the education council has received them subsequently, but I have never seen them.
Again, I’d like to ask the Minister if he is confident that the school is safe and the air is safe regardless of those asbestos issues that were there. Would he be willing to confirm that for the people who use that facility by tabling those air quality reports in this House?
Certainly, I will make a commitment in this House to meet with the Minister responsible for the review, PWS. Once that is initiated, whatever I can share with the Member and the local DEA, I’ll certainly do that. At this point I need to sit down with my counterpart at PWS to discuss it further.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
