Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had to refrain myself yesterday from getting involved in the inclusive schooling discussions. Today, after listening to news reports this morning, looking at Hansard and following up, in my questions today I just want to get a little bit more specific answers to the inclusive schooling. My first question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Has the Minister and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment received the report from the Department of Executive with recommendations on pupil-teacher ratio and the inclusive schooling and the cost...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today is a continuation of some of the discussions that were held in the House yesterday. This morning I woke up and listened to all the reports on the news about inclusive schooling that had a lot of Members here asking a lot of really tough and difficult questions in the House.

I want to clarify, because there was a statement in the House that there was direction from a standing committee that money be taken out of inclusive schooling, and I just want to clarify that over the course of our budget dialogue and our 16 months in the House, there’s a lot of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the efforts of committee and the work that we have been doing going through the budget dialogue process and looking at putting dollars where we feel that has not been looked at or supported in quite a number of years. I think, for the past six years NWT Tourism has been operating on the same budget and doing a really great job in terms of getting out to the markets and other jurisdictions, while at the same time still operating on the second-lowest budget in all of Canada. Even with this little increase that we’re asking for, we appreciate the $600,000 that...

Would the Minister commit to creating a ministerial directive in speaking with the RCMP to make it a priority, and make it mandatory for RCMP to be in the schools and educate the students on what their roles are in the community and in the schools, and create that strong partnership so that our students can speak up, our teachers can speak up, and let RCMP know what some of their concerns are in terms of bullying, violence, and other things that are happening in the school system or on school grounds?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Being one of the volunteers that helped start up the Not Us! campaign in Inuvik and get the funding for it, I know how successful this program can be in empowering our residents, our students, our teachers, everybody that works with children and works in the community. Specifically, there is a very successful program called the Lights On Program that happens that we do in Inuvik but we don’t have the funding to keep it on or provide a safe environment for students in the school.

Would the Minister look at specific funding for the Lights On Program outside of the Not Us...

Mr. Speaker, I was going to ask how many communities are receiving funding and the Minister answered that. We have 13 other communities that can potentially have alcohol and drug-related problems. I want to know – and the Minister did state that he has enough funding to cover the communities that we have now – what about these 13 communities that continue to have these issues. How is he going to address those issues if he’s not committing any other funding?

Can the Minister let me know, and let the government know, and people in these other 13 communities, how is he going to address empowering...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That will be a tough act to follow there. I, too, would like to stand before the House and recognize and appreciate all the work that’s been going on in the education area, specifically to the Department of Education on their new renewal strategy. We have some new staff in there that’s doing some really good work and I think we’ll see some good improvements in the rest of this Assembly as we move forward in the education system and deal with some of our challenges.

Specifically, I would like to thank all the hardworking staff at the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority as...

Just moving further, Mr. Chair, at the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council meeting that was held in January, I know the leadership approved and supported moving forward with a women’s shelter in Tuktoyaktuk. I believe the building they have now was constructed in the 1960s and requires a lot of renovations and upgrades on a consistent basis. They are looking at getting new infrastructure for the women’s shelter. I just want to ask the Minister if he has that on the books and if it was something the Housing Corporation was looking into in the foreseeable future or near future. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just following up on the homelessness initiatives, I just want to ask the Minister if there was any funding moving forward for the day shelter that we have in Inuvik to try to keep its doors open longer during the winter months when it does get pretty cold out there, and the people who are accessing the day shelter are having to leave the day shelter because they can’t operate it during the day because they don’t have the funding. I just want to ask if there are any dollars that would be allocated so the doors could be open, specifically during the winter months when it’s...

Just for an example, our Not Us! Committee in Inuvik invited all RCMP staff to a family night. We introduced them to the community and they engaged and played board games, had discussions, sat down, had tea and coffee with the residents of the community. It really builds that strength and partnership and relationship within our community so that we feel comfortable talking to them and they feel comfortable talking to us. It’s been very helpful.

A while back when I was doing health promotion, we had a program with the coroner’s office where the coroner went into the schools and did an education...