Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The review will be undertaken once we go through this budget, once it’s approved, and the terms of reference will be drafted up. Certainly, the Members should have some input into the system as with the students. I’ve stated in the House that we will be reaching out to the general public and the students, because we need to hear specifically from the students as well. By all means, if Members can contribute, that will be great. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. That motion was brought to this House. It was a direction to our department to provide funding for upgrading. We currently don’t provide funding for upgrading, but we are working closely with the communities and there are other funding sources out there. We provide SFA, student financial assistance, for college and university programming.

We can definitely explore what programs are available to us from the federal perspective. With the Aboriginal Rights Court Challenges Program there is money in place to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. It does exist. The Member is talking about additional, possibly from the federal level, that we’ll definitely explore.

We’re talking about the whole Northwest Territories, it’s not just one region. Especially further up north, it’s got its challenges as well. The funding that we provide to the education authorities, we need to work with that. We continue to work closely with the school boards because of our IT services, as well, and have the educational link to the Internet. We are exploring different avenues, as well, Mr. Chair, about our whole fibre optic and Web band and broadband connectivity. So this will be part of the discussion that we could have with other departments as well. Even at the federal...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The last time was 2007, I do believe. We made some changes to some of the subsidy programming. We may be up for a review as well. Like I said, our policy is always changing, so we clearly hear from the Members that there are certain areas. There is a poverty discussion that’s on the way that will definitely have a reflection on our income security framework as well. Mahsi.

I agree with the Member. Every student goes through a transition, whether it be practicum or wanting to be successful in management areas. We will be sharing this with the college. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This alternative school programming, as we stated in the past, has been successful in various areas. We needed to look at the overall funding, the number of students that were attending in various schools and the funding that they were receiving, and at the end of the day, I guess, the end product, how many students are successfully completing the program. Based on the evaluation that’s been done, we decided that they would continue getting funding and the funding would be based on the alternative programming that would be offered and also the funding to offset the costs of...

Yes, we are doing an overall review of the ALBE Program right now and we want to have some final word on what the linkage could be. We are also working closely with Aurora College. I have met with the board, I have met with the president and identified the concerns that the Member has raised and also other Members, that we need to do more than just ALBE Program in a community and to strengthen the ALBE Program that we have. I have seen some changes just since last year. I have been through small communities, community learning centres, every time I have opportunity to visit a community. I like...

That’s correct, Mr. Chair.

This is an area that we can look at. We can reach out to the communities. It’s on the website but we can contact the communities and regions so that they’ll be aware of it. I just got a note that it’s been accessed 13 times over the last decade. That’s related to the previous question the Member was asking.