MLAs narrowly defeat bid to remove $5.25M from ECE’s budget

An attempt to cut $5.25 million from the NWT government’s education budget, linked to Aurora College’s closure of community learning centres, was defeated in a 9-8 vote on Wednesday.

Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins moved a motion to delete the funding during discussion of the GNWT’s draft 2025-26 budget.

He said the sum represented his understanding of the money the GNWT would supply to Aurora College to run the community learning centres for much of the year.

Aurora College said last month it will close the centres this summer, arguing that they are underused and no longer meeting the needs of people in small communities.

The college has said it will move to more of a focus on virtual learning with some upgrading programs offered at its three main campuses in Inuvik, Yellowknife and Fort Smith. However, the college has yet to set out a finalized version of its plan to replace the community learning centres.

“This money is intended for community learning centres and if they’re not going to use it for community learning centres, I’d say they don’t need it,” said Hawkins.

He suggested that once the college returns with a plan for adult education in smaller NWT communities, the funding could be restored.

MLAs, including government ministers, were taken by surprise when the college’s governors announced the decision to close the centres.

However, the board of governors has existed since 2023 precisely to allow the college to operate at arm’s length from government and make its own decisions.

On Wednesday, Range Lake MLA Kieron Testart – supporting Hawkins’ motion – said he questions “whether or not we are going to be in a position to actually be arm’s length with this institution.”

“$5 million in a small jurisdiction goes a very long way. Let’s reallocate this money into higher-priority areas of the government,” he said.

“I don’t see a need to give money to an operation that’s going to shut their doors,” said Sahtu MLA Danny McNeely. “Come back with a plan and we’ll reinstate that funding.”

Great Slave MLA Kate Reid supported the motion, saying she did so in solidarity with the “frustration” of smaller NWT communities’ MLAs and constituents.

Richard Edjericon, Jane Weyallon Armstrong, Denny Rodgers and George Nerysoo also voted in favour.

Motion ‘would have negative impact’

The motion was defeated when Yellowknife North’s Shauna Morgan and Frame Lake MLA Julian Morse sided with cabinet. (Committee chair Sheryl Yakeleya did not vote and nor did Speaker of the House Shane Thompson.)

Cabinet appeared not to have received advance notice of the motion.

Education minister Caitlin Cleveland, responding to it on the floor of the House, said the motion would simply delete $5.25 million from the department’s funding without actually specifying Aurora College in any way.

Cleveland hit back at some regular MLAs’ characterization of Aurora College as “walking away” from adult education, saying the college had instead declared the current system unsuitable and was working on a new approach.

If that approach is found by the GNWT to be insufficient, she said, her department will need to step in and fill the gap – which she said it would struggle to do if MLAs have stripped it of the money it would use to do that.

“If this money is going, there is no ability for ECE or Aurora College to do the plans that they are putting together,” said Cleveland, who added that it might affect the college’s ability to pay community learning centre staff in the months ahead.

She also queried Hawkins’ math in reaching $5.25 million.

“The amount indicated within this motion is about double the amount of the memorandum of understanding for adult learning and basic education between the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and Aurora College,” she said. (The college has previously suggested its annual GNWT funding for community learning centres is about $3 million.)

“This is going to absolutely have a negative impact on adult learning in small communities,” said Cleveland of the motion’s effect on funding for adult education.

“There is absolutely no part of me that feels we don’t need to be doing more for adult education, especially in small communities, but by taking money away from small communities, we’re not going to get there.”

Finance minister Caroline Wawzonek characterized the motion as an attempt to force a change on the fly without any time to analyze what the actual consequences might be.

Morse, in rejecting the idea, said he sympathized “with the intent of the motion
in the sense that it sends a clear message that you don’t get to just cut things from the communities without talking to the minister and MLAs.”

But he said he could not understand why the motion sought to remove general funding from the department rather than targeting a specific line item dedicated to Aurora College.

“To take it away in a general sense and then just say, ‘Well, we need to do better things with the money’ … that’s a very different conversation,” he said.

Morgan said the motion was the wrong approach to fixing adult education in small communities.

“I’m hearing somewhat contradictory messages here. On the one hand, I’m hearing how important the community learning centres and adult learning are, but I’m also hearing of all these other things we could spend that money on instead,” she said.

“My fear is that as soon as we take this $5 million … away from ECE and just away from their general pot, that money is going to quickly find its way to something else, and it will be a drop in the bucket in the pot of a major infrastructure project like a road, but it makes a huge difference to take that away from education, learning and literacy.

“We need to keep it in the ECE pot … for them to make that turnaround [to an adult education solution] as short as possible, once they figure out who else might be willing to step up and offer these services.”