Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It can be extremely frustrating to be an MLA for a riding with small communities and see the government put aside their needs. I was hoping to see the planning study for a new school in Trout Lake addressed in this budget, but there’s nothing yet.
We are in the 21st century, all of us; the people in Yellowknife, Inuvik, Fort Smith and the people of Trout Lake. You might not think it’s the 21st century if you dropped into the school in Trout Lake. It is a one-room school in the current community centre. A little partition was put up last year, but it’s still more like a one-room schoolhouse some of our parents went to than a modern school. The high school students still have to go to Fort Simpson just like the old days. Very little has changed, although the world has changed so much, and the students in Trout Lake should be no less prepared for it than young people in other communities.
The community is small but the student population is growing. Our Statistics Bureau tells us the growth rate is more than 6 percent a year for the past 10 years, from 2001 to 2011. The school is too small and every year it feels a little smaller than it was. I have spoken before about the pressures this puts on both the students and teachers.
We have spent lots of money building superschools. It is time we start focusing on our small communities. They need stand-alone schools with all the modern teaching aids available. I call on our Education Minister to adjust the capital plan. The last one we saw called for work on a new school in Trout Lake to begin in 2018-2019. That is simply too long a wait. We have to get a planning study done so that we are ready to go. We have to move this project up on our priority list. I look to the support of this Cabinet to address the need for a new school in Trout Lake in this year’s capital planning process.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
