Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on Francophone education in the NWT. And probably to the Minister's and my own relief, I am going to be doing them in English.
So Ecole Allain StCyr in Yellowknife is at 90 percent capacity with a trend of increasing enrolment fueled by GNWT supported immigration and retention of students. Can the Minister tell us what triggers planning for a new or expanded school and whether discussions have started with the Commission Scolaire Francophone Territories du NordOuest? Merci, Monsieur le President.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for ECE.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And in a way, these are champagne problems as they say. We have been working on increasing immigration and so we've seen those numbers go up. As well earlier in this government, we introduced some more liberal regulations, expanding access to French first language education to nonrights holders so this is sort of a situation of our own making. And in terms of the conversations about facilities for CSFTNO, I wouldn't say they've started, I would say they've never ended. They've been ongoing for many, many years.
The way that our process works is that each year school boards provide ECE with their requested capital projects. Sometimes it is something small, like blinds for classrooms, and sometimes it is a school. And so we started having those discussions this year with the CSFTNO. And I think that both us and the school board have been waiting on those census numbers to indicate how many rights holders there are in the territory so that we can have an informed discussion.
I will say that I have spoken to students at Ecole Boreale in Hay River. They asked me about a gym, and I wish I had better news for them but the fact is it is difficult to get new infrastructure. We have school standards and when we build new infrastructure or we renovate, we do it according to those standards. But in the territory, we have 49 schools and we look at each of those schools. They're assessed by the Department of Infrastructure, and they're assigned a rating based on their condition. Unfortunately for Ecole Boreale or sorry, maybe I'll just leave it at that. I'm sort of getting off track here, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that because he's of course getting into my second question. The problems in Hay River are different and, in some ways, very similar, though, to what Yellowknife was like before the expansion of Ecole Allain StCyr. Ecole Boreale has been forced to keep its senior students in a portable for 13 years. Count it 13 years. And there are continuing issues with heating, water, and sewer services. The students also need to compete for gym time with the nearby public school.
Can the Minister tell us what he is going to do with regard to Francophone senior students in giving them a permanent home and a real gym for Ecole Boreale? Merci, Monsieur le President.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And those portables, they are old. I believe they were supposed to be in place for two or three years but here we are 13 years later. And we have had issues with them. There's ongoing maintenance issues that we've been dealing with. So we would all love to see those replaced. Unfortunately, like I said, we have 49 schools. Many of them are in worse condition than the facilities in Hay River. And so it's difficult to make a case to, you know, renovate or build new facilities to replace facilities that are in better shape than other facilities around the territory.
So I'm afraid it's not the best news. But there are joint use agreements between the Hay River DEA and the CSFTNO that speak to the use of gyms. And it is definitely not an ideal situation. I wish we had a gym for Ecole Boreale but we are doing the best we can. I think that if the community was open to looking at school swaps, that might be an option, but that is a difficult topic to broach in Hay River. And at some point, we may get to the point where we really need to start looking at those types of angles. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. And I've got some of the numbers that he was talking about here. As I understand it, there are 840 students in Yellowknife and 135 in Hay River that are rights holders for French first language education. And that doesn't include immigrants, other nonrights holders that are already in the system, and of course there's caps on all of that. But if all these students and their parents exercised their constitutionallyprotected rights, we'd be in real trouble in terms of meeting their educational needs given current facilities.
So can the Minister explain what he's going to do what plan is there for this contingency if everybody exercised their rights and especially given that we've got some out of date and unnecessary enrolment caps? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, I thought I had dealt with this issue a few years ago. I spent a lot of time personally meeting with the chair of the CSFTNO about the regulations. And we settled on some updated regulations that, you know, are by no means perfect but seemed to address a lot of the outstanding issues that we were facing, both the school board and the GNWT. Since we recently received those census numbers, we can now look at how to move forward in terms of the regulations, the capacity, and all of those types of questions. We have not had time to do that given how recently those census numbers came out and everything else that's going on. But that will be the startingpoint for any future conversations. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. And I do want to acknowledge that this Minister has taken a constructive approach with CSFTNO, from everything I've heard so I want to give him credit for that. And I understand now that we've got these census numbers, which is good, but I can't even count or remember the number of times GNWT's been taken to court and lost over Francophone education rights in the NWT over the last 15 years.
So can the Minister tell us how he intends to keep GNWT out of courts over constitutionallyprotected Francophone education rights? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish I could say that we would never go to court again, but I think every jurisdiction in Canada is engaged in ongoing court cases with their respective French first language education bodies. I made attempts with the regulations. I admitted the students that were at the centre of the last court case. And I will say that we actually did win that on appeal. But it's a difficult subject. I understand where the school board is coming from. They want to protect their rights. They want to advocate for their students. And there's French first language school boards across the country that want to do the same, and I believe they all work together and support each other. So sometimes I feel as though perhaps the issue is more of what's happening nationally than in the territory that causes us to go to court but regardless, I believe we are in a good place. We have good relationships with the French first language school board and no matter what happens in terms of court cases, I want to ensure that we do our best to maintain those good relationships. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
