Bob Bromley

My understanding was that Municipal and Community Affairs worked closely with communities on infrastructure advising. Is this Minister saying that he does not know and cannot determine what quality of buildings are being put into our communities?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to bring up something that I have brought up in the past with this department. That’s that it’s not really fair for communities with greater capacity, due simply to their size, to be the sole beneficiaries of reduced costs and greater local benefits associated with higher building standards and efficiency standards. I think that nor really is it fair that use of NWT funds, tight as they are, should be directed towards inefficient infrastructure. So once again I would like to ask this Minister what has been done to introduce the building standards that the larger...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t think it quite concludes. We were on regional operations and we had community operations to conclude.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s commitments there. I acknowledge that in fact we do, we are very open about these things. Who I’m hearing from, of course, are my constituents who are trying to upgrade. I want to make the point that these are young people who are often starting families, or perhaps are single parents who have extra needs perhaps beyond the norm. They are facing these challenges. I hope and, I guess, I would ask the Minister to commit and consider these aspects of these students without appropriate certificates for pursuing post-secondary, that they be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m very disappointed in this information. USEP, of course, is a very small fund and it runs out in no time at all. Ask any of these students who are looking for upgrading opportunities. The Minister knows full well that due to our lack of an adequate system... And albeit we may have one of the best Student Financial Assistance Programs in the country, we also have one of the worst records in graduating students who are unqualified for their post-secondary education. I’m looking to meet this need. USEP clearly doesn’t cover it and we don’t provide upgrading...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today focuses on the priority of ensuring that students graduated from Grade 12 but without the course credits they need to pursue their chosen careers are receiving the assistance they require. Too many times I hear the story of students who have worked hard and graduated with high school diplomas, only to find they are lacking the types of course credits necessary to enter specific post-secondary programs.

While our school counselling services work hard to advise students throughout high school, these stories often contain the statement, “If only I’d known...

I appreciate that. The last part of this is that the deputy minister mentioned the community energy plans and I think the Minister did too, and the capital plans. Were there any standards provided to be met in the development of those plans in terms of energy efficiency or whatever?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m wondering, in our advising to communities, what are we doing to bring the concept of full-cost accounting to communities so they actually can bump up their capacity to that of the larger communities and understand the benefits that can accrue with a higher building standard approach and energy efficiency approach. Are we offering courses on full-cost accounting? The reason I ask that is I am often met with sort of blank looks when I try to bring up that discussion. I know the department has a School of Community Government. Do we have courses such as that? What...

I’ve heard this line many times from this Minister and I’m looking for evidence. I think we’re an evidence-based government and I would like to request that the Minister provide Members with the degree to which community infrastructure is meeting the NWT standards. I’m not asking him now in this question to introduce standards, I’m asking him to provide evidence for the statement he repeatedly makes.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.