Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement and certainly reading here Mr. Dolynny having an exchange with Mr. Ramsay last week in regards to driver education programming in our school, I want to ask the Minister if he’s given some serious consideration with his colleague, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Is this something we can look forward to putting on a piece of paper saying by next year, if we put our heads together and the will of the people and the will of the department, we can have a driver education training program in one of our small communities?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recognize the regional disparity in numbers of young people in the territory that have a driver’s licence of one form or another, Class 7, Class 5 probationary, or Class 5 licence between Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith and the other communities in the territory. Certainly, we need to do something about that. The department is taking this challenge seriously. We have Project Gearshift that we’re allowing participation in schools. We are going to cover up to $3,000 or 50 percent of the cost for them to host professional driver trainers in their communities. We believe that’s going to certainly be a step in the right direction.
Going back a number of years, we had driver training in some of the high schools here in the Northwest Territories. Given what is happening today in the central Mackenzie Valley in Norman Wells and with the pending construction of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway, the Member’s concern about trying to get some type of program into a high school in Inuvik and Norman Wells certainly has merit. Thank you.
Certainly, we want to close the gap on the disparity within our regions. We know not all regions are created equal, so I want to ask the Minister with regard to the driver education training program, is this something that he and his colleagues, specifically the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, can look at as a pilot project in the Sahtu, for example, to raise the challenge with our young people to have one of these types of drivers’ licences for next year?
Mr. Speaker, high school students in Yellowknife and Hay River can still receive two credits toward their high school diploma by taking professional driver training, but that is only available in Yellowknife and Hay River. That, again, is part of the reason we’re looking at Project Gearshift, to get the professional driver instruction outside of those two communities and to young people across the Territories so they can get drivers’ licences. We’re also developing flashcards and an app that is based on the NWT Drivers Manual. I believe in responding to Mr. Dolynny last week, these will be available sometime early in the new year. We believe that will go a long way to helping students pass their driver’s test when the examiner does get into their community. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, would the driver education program have a schedule in a Sahtu community high school for these driver education training programs, that every so often the instructors will be coming into these schools where there’s incentive to receive a credit, get to school, and every three months that in one of the Sahtu communities you’ll know these young students will be receive one type of driver’s licence. It will do a lot of wonderful things in terms of increasing their self-esteem, once they get a driver’s licence.
Mr. Speaker, with the economic activity construction happening in the Mackenzie Delta and also the activity that’s taking place in the Sahtu, it certainly is in our best interest to ensure that, at the high school level, youth have access to getting… One of the fundamentals is a driver’s licence. I think the more we can do that, the better off our young people will be and better able to get employment. I think, at the end of the day, really that is what this is all about, is independence and getting employment for young people across the territory.
On Project Gearshift, that would have to be initiated by schools. Again, it’s funding; it’s a program that’s available to schools. So schools, whether they’re in Inuvik or Norman Wells, can certainly apply for the funding that is available through Project Gearshift. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to see a program stronger than Project Gearshift, but that we actually have a program in our schools that would allow a driver education program for our youth, that they actually not wait for funding but initiate it. Schools are always competing for funding and other initiatives, and sometimes we’re not quite there as we’d like to be in regards to having funding for the schools.
Is this something that they could look at more concrete that could be a pilot project, so say this could work, especially in the Sahtu where there’s oil and gas activity that’s going to be flourishing in the next couple of years?
Thank you. The discussions have already begun between ECE and DOT. We will continue to have discussions. In the past these programs ended because of concerns with liability and also logistical concerns.
I think these are things we can get over and we should get over. If there’s a real need in a community like Norman Wells or Inuvik or other communities around the NWT, this is something that we have to get our heads around. Certainly, we can continue the discussions and I will do that through the Minister and the education board both in the Beaufort-Delta and in the Sahtu. We’ll continue and see where we can get these discussions and keep Members apprised of where we get with the program. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
