Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I noted in my Member’s statement that this week is Aurora College Week, and we had some discussions with the students. I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about one of the suggestions to have elders or cultural activities in the Aurora College campuses or learning centres.
Is there any plan within the department to have elderly cultural office positions staffed in our campuses in Yellowknife or any other campus in the North?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for meeting with the students, because as soon as I met with elected officials, they were really anxious and provided suggestions and ideas. There is one area, the cultural programming that the Member is referring to through the college, it won’t be through my department, but I can definitely work with the college, because there will be a college campus. The college will be going through their strategic planning, as well, and this will be related to them as well. The meetings with the students have been circulated, as well, the minutes, and then part of that will be highlighted as part of the culture programming at the main campus. I will be sharing that with the Aurora College Board of Governors.
I appreciate the compliments from the Minister. Actually, it was Mr. Moses that headed up this meeting with some of the Members here, and we actually had a good discussion.
I want to talk about the attraction. We talked about how do we attract people. Aurora College can be a very unique campus that would bring students or people from outside into the Northwest Territories saying, yes, this is a worthwhile place. I want to ask the Minister because he controls the budget. We control the budget. The Minister makes presentations to us through this form of session. Is this something that he would look into presenting at maybe in the future Assemblies, our positions for elders in the campuses of the Aurora College?
This Legislative Assembly controls the budget, and once it’s passed we start implementing per departmental initiatives. I understand where the Member is coming from. This particular subject will be brought to the attention of the board of governors so they can add it to their strategic planning within their college campuses, whether it be one campus, two campuses or all three campuses.
Two, I agree with the Member that we need to attract those students to our three campuses throughout the Northwest Territories. That is our overall goal, and I promise the Member that this will be addressed with the board of governors so at least that will be part of the discussion as they move forward with their budget preplanning process.
