Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table an e-mail from Mr. Matt Lovatt dated November 2, 2009, to Members of the Legislative Assembly that portrays the extremely dire circumstances in which a 911 service could be critical, with a personal appeal to act on implementation. Thank you.

Thanks again for those comments to the Minister. Of course, the fact remains that they don’t seem to be getting the qualified help or are able to keep competent staff because of the wage problem, so I’m hoping further attention will be focused on that, perhaps in more direct ways than a general contribution.

Training is indeed an important issue and that’s been raised before, the training at Aurora College in the past has not met the national standards. What is being done to improve the Aurora College courses to ensure that our workers do meet those standards? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my statement and pose some questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on early childhood education.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize that we have many capacity issues throughout the North, it’s difficult to find qualified child care workers and we have high costs and affordability questions to deal with, but I really do consider this issue to be possibly the most important opportunity this government has to contribute to a positive future, so it’s of the utmost importance. I’d like to ask the Minister first: what progress has been...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also would like to recognize Jonas Sangris of Dettah. Other residents of Weledeh that I’ve spotted so far include Michele Culhane and Joe Acorn. I’m sure there are others. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is essentially a safety issue. We’re talking about avoiding injuries and, worse, property damage and so on. There is overwhelming data now supporting the need for this sort of action. Although it was initially suppressed by industry, and apparently long enough to really get things entrenched, the information is now overwhelming in volume and absolutely clear. In fact, the experience in Yellowknife and other areas of cell phone use reflect that.

I had a number of constituents and residents contact me and they were all in support of this. One mentioned an experience...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are still so many questions here, but I’d like to ask if the accreditation program is implemented now and does it enable us to produce graduates who will meet those national standards that are set for child care workers? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for those comments. I am aware that the funding has increased and I did recognize some of those things in the statement. Thanks for that review. But there are so many more opportunities that I’m hearing about. There still are simply not enough child care spaces in our facilities in Yellowknife or the other communities. The issue of wages remains as a fundamental one. I suspect we need direct subsidies for those wages to get the qualified help and realize the opportunity that’s here. Is the department looking into subsidizing the wages for qualified child care staff in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to acknowledge the exceptional achievement of one of our citizens and a Weledeh riding resident. Arlene Hache will be in Ottawa tomorrow to be invested as a member of the Order of Canada. The citation announcing this recognition reads:

Arlene Hache dedicates her time and energy to the welfare of Canada’s northern citizens. One of the co-founders and executive director of the Yellowknife Women’s Society Centre for Northern Families, she has spearheaded numerous programs that address issues such as drug and alcohol abuse, education, unemployment and child rearing. A...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I speak on a huge priority for our people, the critical need to give our children the best possible start in life through an excellent early childhood education.

As I noted last year, a UNICEF study ranked Canada last among 25 affluent countries in the delivery of early childhood education and child care programs for its failure to meet nine out of 10 basic performance benchmarks. The NWT did not even meet one of the standards. All evidence overwhelmingly supports the observation of Canada’s chief public health officer who states that one dollar invested in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier and they follow up on the issue of contracts let at the ministerial level to prior Ministers and high-level government officials.

Recent revelations on the practices of sole-source contracting point out an absence of definition in contracting and verification of deliverables, poor or meaningless justifications for granting contracts on a sole-sourced basis, a lack of consideration or ignorance of possible conflicting interests of contractors, very slow disclosure of contracting activity, weakness of restrictions on acceptance of contracts...