Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of the Social Envelope Committee. Like many social issues, the housing crisis I mentioned in my statement cuts across several departments.

Could the Minister provide some background on how we got here? Why is it that the Housing Corporation has a limit on public housing units while at the same time ECE is paying sky high market rents to house over 100 families? I believe it’s 130 here in Yellowknife. Mahsi.

That’s the only question I had. I assume from that response that there was no consideration given to using that product here. That’s all I had. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we know that our housing system is unsustainable. We have imposed a limit on the number of housing units in all communities, but there is a clear need for more public housing in Yellowknife. With a 4 percent vacancy rate, apartments are sitting empty here while people in treatment programs are being evicted. Renting market housing through the Income Support Program does not work for the landlords, does not work for the GNWT or the people who we are trying to help. Why not rent these vacant apartments through the Housing Corporation and make them available as public housing under a...

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for that. I think there has been some confusion here and I believe the first point of order was taken care of. That’s my understanding.

I’m speaking to the point that Mrs. Groenewegen has raised. I do believe that all Members of the House have a role in bringing accountability and for every Member to show up to the best of their ability and so on. If that requires asking questions respectfully, there should be an opportunity to do that.

So I just wanted to make sure that there is agreement that accountability is part of our role, as long as we do it...

That is a significant commitment that the Minister has made here, and I appreciate learning about that today. I think it’s good that the two entities get together and explain their numbers and come up on agreement with what the numbers are. I will expect that will reduce class sizes. If it doesn’t, we’ve still got some work to do.

As a rule of thumb, though, demand for implementing new programs should be backed by new ECE funding. Yet, Yellowknife school boards are laying off teachers and staff because ECE is taking money away right now to provide junior kindergarten in the smaller communities...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to start by noting that board budgets are being cut while boards are being asked to deliver even more services to students. A recent study by the NWT Teachers’ Association, entitled “Understanding Teacher Workloads, A Pan-Northern Teacher’s Time Diary Study” underscores how teachers are becoming so overloaded with new duties that their opportunity to educate is reduced.

Can the Minister ensure the House that the findings of this study are being considered and that school boards will have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yellowknife Education Districts 1 and 2 are not receiving the funding or support they need to deliver the education that the students of Yellowknife deserve. The edict requiring that pre-kindergarten be delivered by Yellowknife authorities without being funded by ECE places an unfair burden on the budgets of these two districts. It lessens the quality of the education they can provide to the students of Yellowknife. Already teachers are being laid off and student-to-teacher ratios are increasing.

A service previously provided by local daycares and schools on a user pay...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m speaking, also, against this bill. I want to back up some of the points that I’ve heard already raised on the floor today. It deserves repeating that the people of Weledeh, the people of Tu Nedhe, the representative of Weledeh and the representative of Tu Nedhe disagree with this, and those are the people that are being affected here.

Fundamentally, even before this decision is finalized, it’s out of date. We know that ridings are already above the 25 percent guideline. Data that was used is now out of date because some ridings are growing rapidly. It took only 28...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t hear the positive response I’m looking for there. I heard a repetition there. The funding formula at ECE has what the Yellowknife school boards state, that the budgets for their operation will be funded at 80 percent of the GNWT estimates and 20 percent by the local taxpayers. The Minister subscribes to this. He has said this in letters. The teachers of Yellowknife deserve the same pensions as all other teachers in the NWT. If not, please explain that.

Why is the Minister not willing to apply the government’s own funding formula to the pensions of teachers in...

Thanks for the response from the Minister. It sounds like there’s some progress being made there and I appreciate that. His choice of the word “commitment,” I might use the word “edict,” and I appreciate the fact that he’s backing off on edicts and starting to listen here and respond.

In the Yellowknife school boards, I hear from a teacher, for example, that with the cuts that are planned – and there has been no backing off from those that I’ve heard about – his class sizes will go from 28 to 33, to 33 to 40. That’s off the chart. People want to know how this government can reduce the funding...