Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee strongly recommends that the government take immediate action to identify the funding necessary to commence the planning study for the construction of a stand-alone Yellowknife Campus facility for Aurora College in the fiscal year 2014-2015; and furthermore, that the government actively pursue partnership with other organizations and governments such as the City of Yellowknife to support this initiative. Thank you.
(Mr. Dolynny): Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Give us a moment; we are just going to circulate that motion.
Committee, the motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have talked about this subject for many, many years and I know my colleagues have strongly talked about this subject at length as well. The Aurora College, in the downtown of Yellowknife, needs to be established in a mechanism that helps foster growth and further programming for all students of the Northwest Territories. It is constantly under siege when it comes to residence problems, which is they don’t have enough residence, even their parking. There is just nowhere for it to grow and go.
I hear constantly from the students, the staff and even some board members about how they see a future with Aurora College in the Northwest Territories, yet they just don’t see a future there. It has been stymied for many years and I had often hoped that the department would have seen the wisdom by now to start a planning study to start looking towards the future.
Again, another issue that I am not sure that it’s necessary to go on too long, but what I would say, that without supporting a planning study, we can’t predict the future. The one organization I think we should take a quick look at this one is in talking with the major, Mayor Heyck, of the City of Yellowknife. The City of Yellowknife wants to be an active supporter in some type of partnership in order to help see this come out with a future of where the college can go. They believe they could provide some type of support. What type of support that would be I am not sure, but this motion leans toward let’s get this discussion out there, let’s plan for the future. It doesn’t not commit long-term capital dollars, but what it does is help describe the type of programming we need out there. That’s why it’s so important to get behind this motion so that the work gets started. Some may argue that it is not necessary at this time, and I think we have many students that we’re failing by not providing the opportunity to continue programming or expand programming.
The last thing I will say is that Aurora College has long talked about wanting to develop university-style programming, and I have supported the past-presidents who have carried that message forward and they said, if they could lean toward a bigger type of programming mandate, they could bring new money into the Northwest Territories. I have often heard about southern institutions wanting to come to the Territories to partner and they actually bring funding models and cash to the Territories to study things like Aboriginal language and culture, but that money and research travels south when they leave and we can’t let that continue to happen.
Aurora College does not have a reputation of attracting many people from outside of the territory and I think that if we started planning appropriately, maybe we can become a college that starts to do that. Maybe we can evolve into a university-style campus and into a university maybe someday, but it all starts with that first ring of the bell of enthusiasm and a planning study would be something to that effect.
Aurora College’s future will continue at its present pace. The students that attend there are very proud. The professors and leadership there and administration and board are very proud of the programming it offers, but united they all say the same thing, which is that much more could be done. Today this motion says let’s take a look at what type of future can happen there. Thank you.
(Mr. Dolynny): Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Mr. Nadli. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to make a point of saying that we do have three campuses in the Northwest Territories right now, and before looking at planning to build a new, big infrastructure, that we look at how we can utilize all three campuses.
I have brought it up here before and have brought it in terms of operations budget in terms of the programs offered in Inuvik. We have a great campus. We have the Aurora Research Institute there. We have great partnerships with the universities to do work up in that region, and that I don’t feel that throwing more money at a planning study when we are not even utilizing all three campuses in the Northwest Territories efficiently right now is definitely putting the cart before the horse in this area.
If Yellowknife Campus is being overflowed or filled to capacity right now, then let’s look at Inuvik. Let’s put more programs up in Inuvik; let’s put some programs at Fort Smith and spread the wealth throughout the Northwest Territories. Just because the programs here in Yellowknife are being filled to capacity doesn’t mean that we have to build a new big building.
I know that, as I said, in Inuvik we have a really great facility and it is not being fully utilized. This is a great opportunity, and I thank Mr. Hawkins for bringing this motion so I can bring this to the floor, so we can start putting some of these programs that are in Yellowknife, into Inuvik.
Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I cannot support this motion, with the fact that this government does have only so many dollars to move forward, and with all the great buildings we have throughout the Northwest Territories, let’s utilize the buildings that we do have and start getting our people educated elsewhere outside. It doesn’t have to be the capital, but let’s utilize our buildings and stop wasting taxpayers’ dollars when we have buildings out there that can be used.
I won’t be in favour of this motion. I know it is something that needs to come down the pipe eventually, but I will not be supporting the motion going forward, knowing full well that we have a great facility in Inuvik. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have to respectfully disagree with the comments from my colleague to my left. The campus here in Yellowknife is full and it is full to overflowing. It has been in need of some kind of an examination of the situation for probably five years, maybe 10 years now. Several years ago, when the lease was up for Northern United Place, where Aurora College Yellowknife Campus is now located, I believe I remember hearing the Minister say that, well, this is just going to be for a short time, we were going to do a planning study and we were going to look at building a facility to get them out of that space and into a stand-alone campus. That is not anywhere on the horizon at the moment and it has not been for many years. I agree with Mr. Hawkins that it is time that we start getting serious about determining what we need for Aurora College.
Mr. Moses makes a really good point, that we have two other campuses which do have space and we could be moving some programs there, but I think we also have to accept that students don’t necessarily want to go to Inuvik or Fort Smith. I’m sorry to have to say that, but I think of the Teacher Education Program which was moved out of Yellowknife, it was a thriving program when it was in Yellowknife, and it moved to another campus and the numbers in that program have dropped significantly. Unfortunately, we have to face the fact that programs seem to thrive better here in Yellowknife because it is a bigger community, it has better services and all that stuff, which I hate to point out but it’s true.
It’s time that we have a facility here in Yellowknife for our Aurora College students which does not cause them to freeze in the winter and sweat to death in the summertime; it gives them enough space that they can actually have decent classrooms and it is well overdue. I fully support the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s difficult to listen to this, because at the community level, not everybody is in the position at their leisure to move to larger centres. Small communities, we try to at least to bring the services to the people. I think that was the whole philosophy about decentralization in our recent discussions. As we go forward on this, I am just not prepared to support this motion.
The small communities, I think, deserve more resources in terms of ensuring that we do deliver these educational opportunities for people at the smaller communities. At this point, I can see the merit of just really doing a planning study in terms of identifying the possibility, but there are parts of the college that exist in Fort Smith currently in Yellowknife, Inuvik, Hay River and Fort Simpson regional centres. From my perspective, I represent the small communities, there needs to be equal consideration for small communities, which at times lack the adequate resources to deliver proper programs and courses. Therefore, I am not prepared to support this motion. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think this is a good discussion. I would like to see more of this sort of discussion so we can… This has been something that has been bubbling along for a while, but meanwhile the Yellowknife Campus has been festering with overuse. I appreciate Mr. Moses bringing this to the table. I do agree with his point that we need to come up with a good vision of the role for each of the campuses. I think I have detected really good support. I personally very much support first-class facilities in our other campuses outside Yellowknife. We have put them in place there even to beyond capacity. We are trying to attract people to those campuses and that’s appropriate. I think I can justify expenditure of funds to make sure we have first-class facilities on those campuses even beyond capacity.
But at the same time, we are seeing an overuse of the very modest campus here in Yellowknife. The reality is that students want to come here, as we’ve seen with programs that we have tried to move out to those campuses and the programs have died out. They don’t get the enrolments so they stop being offered or return to Yellowknife.
One of the consequences, ultimately, is that we lose people from the Northwest Territories because students are choosing to go south. Some programs, if they are not offered in Yellowknife, and even if they are offered in other facilities, and even though the support is not the same, they are choosing to go south, and in doing so, they are getting captured in that system and they are not returning 100 percent. That, I think, is why I support Mr. Moses’ suggestion to come up with a good vision.
We haven’t been saying to people, forget about those campuses in Inuvik and Fort Smith and come to Yellowknife. We haven’t been saying that at all. It is the students who are saying that. I think we need to recognize that reality. In the meantime, though, we have known for years that we are over-capacity here and there have been all kinds of things bantered about. Maybe Mr. Moses’ suggestion of let’s come up with a good vision for the three campuses and recognize the realities and then we can work toward that.
I will be supporting this motion at the very minimum, in hopes that it would finesse that sort of examination and solid foundation and basis for moving forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to say that we have a well-established capital planning process. It takes a lot of hard work, working with your colleagues, different committees, working with Cabinet, to get your plans into the capital plan, and having last minute additions is something that I’m not really in favour of, only because it impacts some of the potential projects that I have in my small communities in my riding. Just with that alone, I like Mr. Moses’ suggestion as well. Let’s re-evaluate this. Let’s just not throw motions in at the last minute to force things done. We have to have a good evaluation and assessment and have a good plan. With that, I won’t be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly I want to just draw Members’ attention up and away from this specific issue that is on the table and just remind everybody about our fiscal circumstances, similar to what Mr. Menicoche was talking about.
We have a very modest capital budget, a very rigorous process that takes a great deal of patience and hard work to get projects on from across the North. It’s a process that everybody watches very carefully. We also are dealing with a project – I want to mention this project again – of the Stanton Hospital that is going to be the biggest capital project we have ever done in the Northwest Territories. It is going to take away what modest flexibility we have, so we have to be very careful about layering on new costs that will limit our flexibility, that will make it more difficult to try to meet some of the needs that are out there that have come up through the process.
All of these projects, we are swamped by far more needs than we have money. There is no doubt about that. I am just sitting here listening to the debate, looking at the previous motion in this House to add more money, money we don’t have; money, when we add it to all the other things on our plate, that is going to push us perilously close to the milestones and marks that we set as a government and as an Assembly to manage our money, to keep our credit rating, to keep our flexibility. So Cabinet won’t be supporting this motion either, just on the basis that we have a plan and we are working very hard to stick to it. We need to all remember that. Not that these aren’t good projects, but we can do what we can afford and we are always making choices, and that is what we are doing again in this case here. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. We will go to closing comments to the mover of the motion, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Of course, my colleague will remain nameless on this next point, but I will really point out about the thin opportunities for Yellowknife in this capital budget, and I will let the people figure out from the record which MLA said that.
The reality here is that we are not asking for a college to be built. What it is, is a planning study. I think what happens here is that in order to see vision as to where this college should be going, it gives a chance to re-evaluate what’s being done now.
Not all college programming is created equal, not all campuses are created equal and certainly not all communities are created equal, and I understand that. We spend a lot of money supporting the other two campuses and I would say that they are two beautiful campuses, the one in Fort Smith and certainly the one in Inuvik. But yet again it can’t be seen as coming at a cost, and I don’t support projects that come at a cost in the communities, nor would I. I would hope that colleagues would reconsider and realize that I am asking for a planning study.
We have a very interested and active partner, who could be the City of Yellowknife, to help support this initiative. There are other partners out there that do exist. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment know exactly who those are.
This is not, when we talk about modest capital project additions, a significant expenditure, but to treat it as a walk-on, that it’s a surprise at the last minute, I have to admit that I am going to say I disagree with that point.
The motion is here today, yes, that I will concede to, but this is not a new issue by any means. So for anyone to say this has just snuck up on them out of the blue, I think misses it.
The thing here that is the key or the underpin of the whole scenario is about getting the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to actively work with partners that exist to help make this initiative successful, to help look at the long term.
Let the college itself drive its programming. Let the college itself drive the programming it needs where it needs these things. The Legislature itself doesn’t do that, nor should it. We already know that the college does not come and report to standing committee or the Legislature to talk about their details. We all know that it falls under the Education Minister. The reality here is, let the college continue its work.
As I said earlier, there are two beautiful campuses outside of Yellowknife, but we should allow the campus itself, the college itself to dictate its own individual programming, but we need to help foster that opportunity and that is what I am talking about here today. The planning study itself will allow them to help predict their future.
The college has been squeezed, if not shoe-horned into a situation that could be better described more as a very uncomfortable situation in Northern United Place. I don’t say that easily, because the owners of that building are constituents of mine and they often talk about how important the college is. I hear about that often and I agree that the college is an important tenant in that building. But at the same time, by thinking that that is the best place for it, is missing out on the opportunity of education that can happen here.
I think by voting against this, really you are voting against, by way of simple example, whether it is a $75,000 contribution, you are actually voting against every one of the students there who wants to take programming, it’s not the money. The people who want to continue the programming. It’s true. The instructors there will say that they continue the style of programming, they could attract more students if they had better residences. If they had better facilities, they could do more programming, they could do more. All you have to do is talk to the students there, talk to the administrators, talk to the instructors. There are so many reasons about yes for this. But really, at the end of the day, people will want to vote no, and I will respect that. But I won’t give up. I will be back on this issue. The fact is, who we are really hurting here is not the capital budget that Minister Miltenberger keeps an eye on, we are hurting the students of the Northwest Territories. Let it be no mistake that they are the ones impeded by not even allowing us to have a study to say, what could the college look like, what could we do for them, what could we do for education in the Northwest Territories.
Although I know how the vote is already going to go, and I will save my colleagues the grief of standing up to show that they are not going to vote for it, I will not ask for a recorded vote. But that said, Members have already clearly said how they are voting and that is all I have to say at this time.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Defeated
Committee, we are on 8-7, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, education and culture, infrastructure investment summary, infrastructure investments, $2.986 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask a question at this point. It comes from comments that were made earlier with regards to a planning study and what happens after a planning study is completed.
I look at this year’s budget and it indicates two planning studies, one for Colville Lake School and one for Trout Lake school. I am not quite sure if I understood correctly, but as I listened to the response earlier, I thought I heard them say that if in 2014-15 a planning study is completed for, say, the Colville Lake School, that there would not be construction money for at least another year, but probably if there was a planning study in ‘14-15, construction money would come in ‘16-17. I would like to get that clarified. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. With any planning studies, we need to identify areas of the project itself, and once we do an analysis and scope of work, then we need to identify, through the capital planning process, what is required if there is going to be a new school built.
I believe that is what Ms. Allison was referring to, but I can get Ms. Allison to elaborate and make more clarification on that subject. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Allison.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Basically, if the planning study was completed in 2014-15, you could still then flag it for capital funding in 2015-16, as long as you complete the work before our capital planning process starts, which is generally in February. Does that answer your question? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Allison. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it answers the question. It is a definite maybe, I think is what I heard. I guess it concerns me that again we have projects in this capital budget which really are suggesting that we are going to have school additions or renovations, not in 2014-15 but maybe the year after, but it doesn’t sound like that is very feasible. With the amount of work that is required to do once the planning study is done, unless it is done early on in the fiscal year, there is no way that the project is going to get through the capital plan. It also has to be a high priority in the capital plan, and we have seen from five different schools across the territory that you can be in the ECE priority plan but that doesn’t mean that you are going to get into the total capital plan. I just wanted to clarify that and I am still quite concerned that we are not going to get any schools worked on for at least another two or three years at least at this point. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is part of the process that we have to go through, as with any other capital infrastructure process. The two school projects that have been identified as a planning process have been earmarked as a priority by this department and also have been identified as a priority by Cabinet too. It’s a process we have to go through, Mr. Chair.
We will do what we can as a department to push through all those projects that are before us. Some red flagged projects are pushed forward, so hopefully they will be approved at a later time. We want to do this planning process as soon as possible, so we can at least meet the next capital planning process, Mr. Chair. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Bisaro.
That’s fine. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Committee, I just want to remind everybody here that we are on 8-7, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, education and culture, infrastructure investment summary, infrastructure investments, $2.986 million. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few really quick comments here. I know that Cabinet is familiar with the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council leadership meetings and there was a motion passed last year in terms of getting some adult learning centres up in the communities of Paulatuk and Sachs Harbour. There was some response made in terms of renovating some space or creating a new learning centre in either one of those communities and I just wanted to ask the Minister what were his thoughts and plans on the resolution brought forth from the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council specifically to those learning centres. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We need to gather the latest update on that. It’s really fine print right now, but what we need to do is work with the college, Aurora College Board of Governors, to see if there’s a need for that. I’m sure the leadership has addressed that with the Board of Governors, if that’s the case. We need to address it with them and have them identify it as a priority and then it will be addressed to my attention as Minister responsible so I can put it through the capital infrastructure process. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
I look forward to the update. Just one other question with regard to infrastructure and that’s dealing with the E3 School. I brought it up in general comments at the beginning of this budget and it’s dealing with the dental therapist’s office. This would be something that would probably fall under renovations even though it is affecting our operations budget. We do have an individual there hired full time that’s not able to practice any type of oral care, which is a big issue within our youth and our children. I just want to know if there’s going to be any structural renovations within the dental office within the E3 School in Inuvik. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We are fully aware of the situation in the E3 School. There’s been discussion between the school itself, administration, the BDEC, Health and Social Services and Public Works to deal with this ongoing issue and to have some resolution for a dental therapy suite. So the program support teacher office has been temporarily allocated for the dental therapist at this point, temporarily. Students are going to Inuvik Hospital for dental therapy appointments. We are fully aware of it and are working towards resolving that issue immediately. Mahsi.
With the response to that question, the room that they put it in, does that follow the right guidelines in terms of dental therapists’ practice, going into the program support teacher’s classroom now? Are those regulations now met or are we contravening some of those regulations by moving the dental therapist and not doing the safety of both the therapist themselves and the students?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Ms. Allison.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There would be required renovations to the dental suite itself mainly to do with ventilation. So the space that they’ve allocated right now, which is an office space, is purely temporary. The dental office suite that was designed for them still requires upgrades based on what Health requires. There’s going to need to be some money put towards it and some renovation work. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Allison. Mr. Moses.
Yes, in the room they are temporarily in now, I know obviously it’s not going to be up to standards, but are we contravening any type of regulations or legislation by not having the dental therapist practice in a room that is not adequate or was not prepared for dentistry?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Lafferty.
We are working very closely with Public Works and Services and Health and Social Services because dental would fall under Health and Social Services laws. So we have to meet the standards when we start renovating that area, so we have to make sure that it does meet the standards the Member is referring to. That’s a good point, so we will definitely take that into consideration. The Minister of Health is here as well. Mahsi.
Just one final comment with the construction and all the work that was done on E3 School. I’m sure you’ve all heard of it and it’s been in the news on some occasions. It has to deal with the parking and the way parking was structured in terms of how the school was built and the congestion that it has in the morning and at lunch and how it’s become a safety issue within the school. Has the department looked at that and looked at any possible alternatives to try to get that fixed? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
That’s an area where we are working closely with Public Works and Services and also BDEC, the administration. It’s been identified and the public has been commenting on some concerns in that respect. So we are moving forward on this and so we will keep Members up to speed if there are any changes coming. Mahsi.
Committee, just before we leave this activity summary, I just want to do some general housekeeping before we do. In the oral exchange between Ms. Allison and Mr. Bromley, there was a quote, “I would have to dig into that information.” This was regarding the pellet boiler program at the Prince of Wales. If I could get a firm commitment from the department that they will actually commit to that. Mr. Lafferty.
Yes, Mr. Chair. We will provide that additional detailed information. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. With that, committee, I will now rise and report progress.
