Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I have indicated to the college that I am certainly keen to receive their list of priorities and also understand what it is that they need and what years that they do need them so that I can further community that as well to my colleagues. And for potentially further information, I'd be happy to share the floor with the deputy minister through yourself.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to my left I have James Fulford who is the deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment. And to my right I have Terri-Lynn Locke-Setter who is the assistant deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we've learned from since -- as the assistant deputy minister informed the House, this process starts well in advance of us sitting here today and so there is quite a bit of lead time. And the school in Fort Providence has informed us that, in fact, they do not need the fencing that was previously identified. And so those dollars have actually -- and the Member, as well as yourself, Mr. Chair, will probably go back to your computers this evening and find an email from myself that was sent earlier today. But those dollars are looking to be reallocated...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, absolutely. So, first of all, I think this is a good place to remind the House that the bulk of the dollars received from the federal government for Indigenous languages flow through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment right to Indigenous governments for language programming. ECE is also actively partnering with four education bodies across the territory to pilot the Indigenous languages instructor employment program. And the aim of this program is to recruit and develop Indigenous language instructors for the JK to 12 age group, and this is...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that project is projected to be completed within the 2026-2027 school year.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's the programs that I've mentioned that are funded through the literacy council. There's also work that's done through Aurora College on the adult literacy and basic education skills program, and ECE also funds the college to make sure that they're maintaining that curriculum. There's also indirect funding through other departments. For example, health has funded family cooking activities and such, and those have an indirect literacy involvement as well. People are coming together, they're reading recipes together. And so there are also...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So our capital standards were updated in 2020. A lot of our school buildings predate 2020. And our capital standards apply to new builds in the territory that will follow that standard but it doesn't mean that all of a sudden we -- we would never be able to, for example, tear down every school in the territory and start over. So we have to start from somewhere. So the schools that have been built post 2020 would follow those capital standards. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, for the operational details of how we collect information from education bodies and Aurora College and etcetera, I would like the opportunity to pass to the assistant deputy minister, please.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we have -- I don't think it's a secret to anybody in this room that we have quite a huge need when it comes to infrastructure across the Northwest Territories and across every single department. A lot of our infrastructure in the territory was built around the same timeframe, and so a lot of it ends up coming due around the same timeframe. And so the demands on our dollars for infrastructure are quite large and traditionally education facilities, be it our JK to 12 education facilities, are the responsibility of the provincial or territorial...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I certainly do -- or am in support of this request and is one that I think is important. For this current year, our -- sorry, our capital projects had already been brought forward for this capital planning process and so we have earmarked this project for further years' consideration. And as people will note, for the projects we have brought forward within our small capital projects, they are largely based on safety and on accessibility across the board. Thank you.