Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. We always tell our young people that they need to get a good education and that is the key to their success, but the examples we set are not always good. I refer, for example, to the school in Nahanni Butte. It’s an old log building that needs to be replaced. We have to get this into the capital plan.
I wish I could refer to the school in Trout Lake, as well, but the situation is even worse in Nahanni Butte. In Trout Lake, technically that is not a school at all. No school. The people of Trout Lake send their kids to the recreation centre for classes. This has been going on for years now and the old school is long gone.
School is not recreation. It is not daycare. The Department of Education has a duty to provide students with a good learning environment. The teachers are doing their best, but all they have is a little renovated area in the rec centre to accommodate students all the way from kindergarten to grade 10. There is not enough separation between grade levels, and there is not even a gymnasium for the students or the community. This government is letting down those students, the teachers, and all the people of Trout Lake.
I have asked time and time again for this government to at least start planning for this project, but all I get is talk and no plan, let alone any action. We hear a lot about the Aboriginal Student Achievement Program and this government has spent more than $100 million on the super school in Inuvik. It is not too much to have a school, even a mini-school, in Trout Lake. It should not be too much to ask to get a modern little school in Nahanni Butte as well.
I have been polite but persistent on this issue. I have been pushing on this for years now and it’s time to get the job done. It’s time to break the ground for Nahendeh student achievement. I will be asking the Education Minister about this shortly. In his replies he should just borrow a line from President Obama and say, yes, we can.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
