R.J. Simpson

Thank you. And the way this planning for capital works is that the department gathers up all of the different wants from the different school boards as well as information about the state of all the different capital assets from the Department of Infrastructure, and then we make assessments as to what can be done with a budget. And we sometimes have enough for a new school or a retrofit as well as a few a couple small capital projects. And the things the Member's referencing accessibility, ensuring older schools are accessible those are my priority for when I look at the smaller capital...

Thank you I think the Member was referencing the residential school residence in Fort Smith, not a day school. So we are engaging with the federal government to try and find some funds to make these projects a reality. I'm heading to Ottawa in a few weeks to have discussions with a number of Ministers. So I don't have a date yet because we don't have the money yet. Development of these facilities is highly dependent upon federal funding. Thank you

Thank you. So what we've asked is for the band to put together a proposal for a school according to the capital standards, Education, Culture and Employment's capital standards on school projects. And then, as well, a plan for anything additional that they would like so that we have sort of a base model to go off of and then we can look at additional things that usually aren't in schools and figure out if there's ways to find funding to make that happen. Thank you.

Thank you there's money from a number of sources so I will hand it to Mr. Shannon to discuss that. Thank you

To my left I have deputy minister John MacDonald, and to my right is assistant deputy minister of corporate services Sam Shannon.

Thank you so the Member's raising some very interesting and different budgeting proposals, and I think that's more of a conversation to have with the Minister of Finance. We budget for projects that we intend to complete. And there are funds in case of a school, if there is a boiler that explodes in school, it's not like there's no money listed in here that so that means we'll just never fix it. We deal with issues as they arise. We perform maintenance. The school is old, but there have been retrofits. There's regular maintenance. So I don't want anyone here to leave thinking that the school...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated, each campus serves a purpose. In Fort Smith, that's where the administration of the college takes place, and there's no intention to change that. The other campuses each have their roles as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And so of course we can't speak to any particular numbers, but I'm not sure who we would make a down payment to. We don't even have land identified for a school yet so we are a ways off. But I wish the federal government would have built a school in Behchoko as well. It would have made this process a lot easier. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to single out any individual staff member. That's inappropriate, it's against the rules of this House, so I'm going to leave it at that. That's the term Aurora College uses. That's the term the institution uses. The idea of a university headquarters is something that is it's not really used in postsecondary institutions. Colleges and universities don't distinguish one campus from another by calling one a headquarters and one, you know, a subservient. Each campus has difference roles. Sometimes they have different colleges as part of the same university...

Thank you. So we're approaching these projects in a much different way than has been done traditionally. And we're not even approaching them each the same; they're each different in their own ways. And that answer really depends upon our partners, so the Tlicho government and the band in Colville Lake so I don't have an answer. We are trying this new way of doing things, and it's going to take longer than it normally would, and it normally takes quite a while to get a school off the ground and built and opened. So unfortunately I don't have a solid date. Thank you.