Caroline Cochrane

In the government response that we tabled yesterday, it was stated that the advisory committee to the regional board will be set up and an advisory committee, or senate, or whatever we call it, will also be set up. One is to have regional representations from all of the regions in the Northwest Territories. The other one is to actually provide expert advice to the administrator on specifics regarding the post-secondary education. Those two boards, committees, are very critical, so they will be one of the first priorities. We did commit to that at least in the first two years, but I am hoping...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The territorial-wide vision is actually a political decision that will be made, but it's really important; we actually want the associate deputy minister of post-secondary renewal to be with us during that process because that person has to understand really clearly what the vision is, because the next step from that is to be able to do the post-secondary vision based off of the territorial vision. So it's a political decision, but that person will be helping to facilitate it.

Mr. Speaker, our cultures and languages are the foundation of our work in Education, Culture and Employment. When our languages and cultures are strong, our people are strong and our work is much more successful. I am pleased to report that we are seeing progress in our efforts to retain, preserve, and promote Northwest Territories languages and cultures.

We are currently finalizing a multi-year action plan as a companion piece to the Strong Cultures, Strong Territory Framework. The action plan contains 25 categories of actions needed to ensure the Government of the Northwest Territories is...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When this was first brought to us as Members of the Legislative Assembly, I did talk a little bit more to the Member from Kam Lake, who was bringing this forward. At that time, my biggest concern was around the money. Within this, what will be coming up later, is that introducing that, if this goes through, that there would be an extra $30,000 that can be utilized a year before the election or during the year of the election. I have always been about fairness and I have tried to maintain that fairness throughout all of my work here at the Legislative Assembly. This doesn...

The act does state that we have to have an administrator in place, so that position will stay until we get the new advisory committee initiated. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize Josee Clermont, who is the executive director of College nordique. It's great that we work together and I am looking forward to further partnerships.

I also want to recognize, if they are still up there, we should have a group of grade six students from William McDonald coming to learn about our consensus government, so I'm excited to have them here as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the Echo Dene School will be getting a major renovation of six stations to meet the National Building Code of Canada, as well as to enhance the home economics program offered at the school. Proper lighting will need to be planned and installed, which may require a new ceiling. The current soundproofing and insulation are likely insufficient for the redesigned space, so we will need to redo that. In a building of this age, abatement might be an issue, so we are looking at doing electrical and probably a new ceiling. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we commit to providing that to the MLA. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sad to hear that it's 50 years old. I mean I know that lifespan within the GNWT was around 45 years. However, in saying that, I've been here for many years, and I know that there are old buildings that are over 50 years that are still standing and still strong. Like I said, what we need to do is we have capital plans for Education, Culture and Employment's infrastructure over a 20-year period. We don't have that currently for Aurora College, so it's a piece of information that we need to compile. We need to look at every single infrastructure asset that we have within...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Excuse me if I get the name wrong. The Charles Yohin School is going to have a complete redesign and renovation to the home economics room, including custom millwork and specialized appliances because they don't have the spaces currently. That's the plans. Thank you, Mr. Chair.