R.J. Simpson

The department has looked at a number of ways of doing this. Unfortunately, there is no way of getting around the fact that the board members were elected for a fixed period of time. Any change to that period of time, to extend it, would be antidemocratic.

If you are elected to a certain period, if the voters vote you in and they think that you are going to be there for this many years because that is what the legislation says, I am not willing to extend that. What would be required would be a plebiscite, similar to what municipalities do.

I believe in democracy. I am a strong supporter of...

The best-spent money is always on children's education, so it's hard to argue with that.

SFA is for students who are studying. I don't know if that is an appropriate avenue to provide funds to somebody who is working as an apprentice, but I have been speaking for years about the need to get more apprentices in the territory. We have so many journeypeople who are retiring, who have retired. Like the rest of Canada, we just do not have the people to replace them. I am hopeful and committed to increasing that number during the life of this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Aurora College offers trades, industrial, and occupational training in the trades mobile training lab. This lab is a state-of-the-art facility. I think it is pretty cool, basically. We are always open to having these discussions with Indigenous governments. In 2019, December, the lab returned to Inuvik from Tuktoyaktuk after offering the Building Trades Helper Program.

There are ongoing discussions about how we can better use this lab in the Beaufort-Delta for things such as trade preparation, entry-level programs for youth to enhance employment skills, and the Building Trades Helper Program...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize Mr. John Stephenson, the former chair of the Yellowknife District No. 1 education authority. I never had a chance to work directly with him, as our terms did not quite overlap, but I have heard nothing but good things, and I look forward to working with him, as he is still a trustee on the board. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yesterday, responding to questions from the Member for Yellowknife North, I committed my support to this project. I think that this is an amazing opportunity. I am privileged to be part of this transformation of Aurora College into a polytechnic university, and I am whole-heartedly behind it.

I have been having conversations as of late that we need to do a better job explaining this to the public, and so, moving forward, I am going to be releasing more information about what we are doing. We have a plan that is nearing completion, an implementation plan, which will lay out the next steps. That...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank my colleague for allowing me to clarify this situation a little bit. I am not going to speak to the reasons for termination. That is the Premier's domain. That position served at the pleasure of the Premier.

I will note that I was aware last week that there was going to be a meeting between Dr. Weegar and the Premier. I didn't know what the ultimate outcome of that would be. I do not know if it was presupposed.

Late last week, I discovered that Dr. Weegar and the GNWT would be parting ways. I wasn't privy to the conversation, so I do not know if the...

The department is aware and looking into this. Unfortunately, I have to report that we do not have a silver bullet for this issue. It is going to take a bit more research, but we are committed to doing that, and I will get back to the Member when we have that information.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In March of 2019, YK1 and YCS raised the issue through a joint letter to ECE. To my knowledge, CSFTNO has not raised the issue through a formal channel like that, but I am sure that it is on their radar. ECE officials have engaged with the Yellowknife DEAs to begin to try to figure out how to solve this issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My colleague is speaking about the trades and occupations wage subsidy program in which the department tops off the wages for apprentices for a couple years. She noted that it doesn't necessarily follow the apprentice all the way through. That is because the pot of money just isn't big enough to do that. We can't cover everyone.

I am looking forward, in this Assembly, to increasing the number of apprentices and journeypeople that we have in the territory. If this is something that we think is useful and a way to do that, then I look forward to having those budget discussions with Cabinet and...