Merci, Monsieur le President. I'd like to answer my question in English about the expansion of Ecole Allain St-Cyr. Can the Minister provide an update on the status of this project? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Member's interest in this program. It's been an ongoing issue in the Court of Appeal since January 2015. The most recent update is that we have finalized the schematic design that was approved by both the CFSTNO and the departments. It has gone out for an RFP with the standard gym as the basis for evaluation with the option price for the expanded regional-sized gym that can be selected solely based on the GNWT discretion.
The RFP will close March 10, 2017, and we're expecting to break ground spring of this year and hopefully have the work completed in the fall of 2018. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the response from the Minister and, yes, this is something that's a passion of mine and it's certainly in my riding. My understanding, Mr. Speaker, is that there has been a submission to Heritage Canada, but there's still some discussions, I guess, going on about what the final design is going to look like, and I don’t believe that there's actually letters of support yet from the commission or the Francophone Parents Association. So is it the intention of the Minister to seek letters of support and come to an agreement on a final design?
The department did present and work with CFSTNO on a schematic design and finalized it based on what the Court of Appeal had brought forth and, in fact, the department has committed to assuming responsibility for funding of the project in its entirety based on the final design, which was more than what was recommended out of the NWT Court of Appeal, and that's the design that we are going with.
Can the Minister tell me then how does the department usually work with school boards when it comes to capital projects involving expansion of the school? Is there a representative on the Design Committee or an Oversight Committee? How will the department work with the commission on this case and how do they generally approach these matters?
Based on the enrolment and the size of the school as well community size and population, there are a lot of criteria that comes into play here and also standards within the school. When working with the school boards, obviously it varies from community to community. We have another situation such as Colville Lake where we're looking at building the school to a set standard. The community wants to make some changes, so they have to go and look for third-party funding as well. So it's working with the school boards and we just follow the standards that are set out in legislation.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister and thank him for his response, but I guess I didn't really get an answer. I want to know specifically what role will the commission have in this particular expansion project. Is there going to be a joint committee that can look at placement, design of the classrooms, make sure that the facility meets the needs of the commission, the francophone community? What exact involvement is the commission going to have as this project moves forward? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
As I mentioned earlier, the department has worked with CFSTNO to look at creating that final schematic design based on the Court of Appeal order, which was two years ago. There was agreement on that design to move forward with option, and the RFP did go out with an option of the expansion. I do understand that the CFSTNO was looking for third-party funding, and we did make a submission as well to Heritage Canada, but yet have not heard any commitment of funding moving forward.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
