Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re talking about Yellowknife here. I asked, what’s the Minister’s assessment of the impacts of this on the services to the students? No answer. He went off in a different direction. I asked what collaboration and support. I didn’t hear any collaboration and support. They’ve had meetings, dictatorial results.

Will the Minister commit to working with our school boards to provide the new investments required with these new responsibilities that he is asking of them? Mahsi.

So, essentially they’ll be slightly less at the end of this time and, of course, the Minister forgot about the cost recovery programs that are in place that he’s requiring that they drop. So a net substantial loss. In the third year, obviously, with 120 extra people, small children to look after, they’ll be expected to provide junior kindergarten with no new funding in year three. This will be on the backs of services currently provided to our children, as I’ve mentioned.

What is the Minister’s assessment of the impact students will have to bear from this failure to provide new support for...

I appreciate all those clarifications and responses. Those are all the questions I had. I think there were some heads-up and pointers that could be considered as we work towards a review of the legislation. I appreciate this information. That’s all I had. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The ECE Minister has given us a schedule for rolling out free junior kindergarten service across the NWT. It begins with small communities in ’14-15, followed by regional centres next and, finally, Yellowknife in year three.

Unfortunately, the Minister is funding small community programs this coming year by removing funds for our students here in Yellowknife. The Minister will say schools have a surplus, but in fact our schools raise funds through taxes on Yellowknifers to cover costs not covered by government. While the Yellowknife students are funded on a much lower...

Just perhaps a little expansion there. How are the two treated differently, or at least how is it treated within the unsettled regions, non-designated lands? Thank you.

Somewhat colonial comes to mind there, Mr. Chair, but again I think this is the sort of thing that will come out once there’s a thorough opportunity for review. Thanks for that response.

The board should have the ability to set its own rules of procedure rather than excluding the public interest. Is that currently the case? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table two documents. The first is called “Income Security for all Canadians.” The second is an infographic that has a lot of good stuff in it, called “The Case for a Guaranteed Income – Lifting People from Poverty: Fairly, Efficiently and Effectively.” Mahsi.

Thank you. I think there are a lot of people out there that could make suggestions that are caught in these poverty traps, but I’ll take the Minister’s offer and work with him on that.

I know the Minister and I have the same goal here, so I hope he takes these points as constructive and friendly suggestions.

Would the Minister commit to including the six recommendations I made this morning on income support in the anti-poverty work that he is doing? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement with questions for the Minister of the social envelope today, Minister Abernethy. The Minister has been working hard on an Anti-Poverty Strategy and more recently an Anti-Poverty Action Plan. The strategy and plan are based around five pillars.

Could the Minister explain which pillar addresses the poverty traps that are built into our income security programs that I’ve been talking about for the last three days? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I continue looking at our income security system by seeking ways to avoid the creation of poverty traps. In my last two statements I described how Charles ended up in a system that leaves him struggling to feed his family and that pulls him back down every time he tries to make a bit of money on his own. Charles is not a real person, but we all have constituents, family members and friends in such situations.

The experiences of Charles and his family lead to obvious recommendations:

We need a realistic definition of a poverty line based on the actual costs of...