Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement is on a school in Sachs Harbour for students. We found a solution. We found a unit in Inuvik that we could rent for the last three months of this last semester for $1,400 a month. It’s a four-bedroom house that we could probably put bunk beds in every room, we could have 16 kids in that house in Inuvik from Sachs Harbour for high school. So I think it beats the market rent for housing for tenants and it certainly beats having students having to leave school in Inuvik and even quit school due to inadequate housing. Basically these students have already lost a year. We need to get them back on track.
Certainly, of course, the Beaufort-Delta Education Council has to cover the costs. The students will need a supervisor to keep them on an even keel. We need to have some flexibility to ensure that the students of Sachs Harbour are getting the support to succeed. This is the only right thing and the only fair thing to do.
There used to be a boarding home in Inuvik, but that closed when grade 12 was added to the school program in Paulatuk. This is wrong. This is a disadvantage to the school students of Sachs Harbour and some students in Paulatuk since the community did not get grade 12.
We say in this House that educating our young people is our top priority, yet even day to day we see young people struggling in our small communities like Sachs Harbour. High school students do not have the same opportunities that other young people do here, either in Inuvik or in Yellowknife. I want to see some action. These students from Sachs Harbour must succeed in school in Inuvik starting this fall, or getting a high school teacher in Sachs Harbour this coming year.
These kids are the future. We must help them. As a government, this government must help.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
