Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we certainly didn't plan it out, but it looks like we're having a bit of a theme day today. I, too, am rising to speak about the closure of the community learning centres, and some concerns I have about the relationship between the Minister and the board and the president of Aurora College.
Now, Mr. Speaker, as my fellow colleagues have already articulated, and I don't need to repeat today, we heard the news about what's happening. What really concerns me is that this news dropped and there was no plan associated with it. The college didn't articulate that, you know, this is a change that's being made, but here's how things are going to be done going forward or the department coming forward and saying, you know, we've spoken with the college, we've worked with the college, this is going to be a change but we do have a plan going forward for how we're going to fill this a gap, for how we're going to ensure the people in the communities are supported in getting the upgrading that they need in order to participate in post-secondary education. So it's really concerning.
I saw in the news the GNWT said they will be examining alternatives, but this is really something, if you're going to drop news like this, you want to see that the government and the board are aligned, that they're talking. As the Member from Monfwi pointed out, the board receives a significant amount of funding from the GNWT. There has to be alignment between the funder and the implementer of programming on what is being done with that money.
Mr. Speaker, we've also seen recently in the news the board speaking about their doubts about the polytechnic transition, about the work that's being done there. And so, you know, there was concern in Inuvik being raised by their town council what's going on with the campus there. There seems to be a lot of increasing disparity between what the Minister is saying the goals of Aurora College are and what Aurora College is doing and what the board is saying, and it concerns me that there is such a lack of alignment between the funder and the organization which implements the programming.
So what is going on here, Mr. Speaker? Aurora College has got to be a significant piece of our workforce development. We've set workforce development as one of our goals in the mandate. We've got to get control of this.
Last but not least, Mr. Speaker, we still do not have a mandate for the college. It's been seven months since the mandate expires. I know that the mandate does say that it continues until the next one is done. So I'll have questions for the Minister later today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Members' statements. Member from Mackenzie Delta.
