Caroline Cochrane

Range Lake

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Minister McLeod is correct. This money is actually just for the implementation of the playgrounds and a couple of washrooms. The cost was higher in the northern communities than we projected. The money for the relocation of students for Sissons School has not been determined yet. They are still working out the allocations on where those children will go with the school board, the Yellowknife School Board is doing that, and also, what the cost, what the needs will be, whether they will need modules, et cetera.

Until that work is done, we won't know what the cost is. If...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the reasons this motion is important is it is not only a women's issue. We are asking for a family room. The dynamics are changing, now. It used to be, again, that women were expected to stay home and raise children. That is not the norm anymore. It might be prominent, but it is not the norm. It is not only a women's change table in a women's washroom. It needs to be a change table in a family room that men who are caring for children also have the option to provide for their infants. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This motion is one that I hold dear to my heart and I really do support it. I hope everyone will support it. I just want to share that women are well-known within their communities as leaders; however, they tend to be on the ground in providing services that stay in the communities, and they don't usually get to the higher levels such as being an MLA or a Minister or Premier. My own experience is I worked for over 20 years with homeless women and low-income women. I came into the government not because I wanted to be a politician, but because I felt that our needs weren't...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also am going to support this motion. For many years, I was a single parent, and childcare was always a barrier. Women traditionally are known to make less income. This is not the same in the Legislative Assembly, but it used to be, in a time when women were told, and I am going to be kind of blunt, that, "You make your bed. You lie in it." So women stayed in relationships, in my mother's day, throughout their lives, happy or not. Those times have changed. We now have more single parents. The majority of them tend to be women, although there are men who are single...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

I will have to get back to the Member on that. We have 10 education authorities. We usually provide the curriculum. I am not exactly sure how they get the student feedback, but I take note, and I am expecting that they do get student feedback. If not, then I will put that forward as a recommendation. I will get back to the Member and find out if we currently do, and if we don't, my recommendation at the next education leaders meeting will be that they get as much feedback from students as possible on all topics.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes. We definitely work within our schools. We start with our Safe and Caring Schools. We provide work around informing students about bullying, supporting each other, et cetera. We re-enforce to students when they are bullied in any way on media and the Internet, et cetera, to notify the school, and we will address that. That is one piece of it.

We also do a lot more areas. We have a media smart, I believe it is called, that is available to all of the JK to 12 that people can use to inform on Internet safety. We have specialized programs for grade fours that they can...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have to say that YK1 School Board has actually been very proactive in doing this. They have already sprayed, and I am not technical; I don't know what kind of spray, but they have sprayed the mould to contain it. Over the spring break, they will be taking down all of the walls that actually have mould on them, so that work will happen over the spring break, and then the roof will be replaced in the summer. I wanted it to be faster. My Cabinet colleagues reminded me that kids are still in school, so we do have to wait for the school. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The roof at the William McDonald School has, in all honesty, been one of my major stresses for the last few months, ever since I heard there were issues with it. There were some issues put forward in 2016. We found that it had exceeded its life expectancy. They had done some patching. Over the time, though, the YK1 School Board Authority was told not to go on the roof, not by ECE or anyone else except by the contractor who fixed the original roof. They have not gone on the roof.

In the meantime, when they first got it fixed, there were a few little tree seedlings growing...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to speak both as a mother who has borne children and also as a social worker who specialized in child and human development. There is a lot of research that talks about the importance of bonding with infants and the importance of gaining a solid attachment with your infant. Allowing only a couple of weeks for a parent who has an infant to be able to be with their child and then get taken on the road, as many of us do, is contrary to the whole idea of building attachment and bonding. Research shows that, the more attached that a parent is to their child, the...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 3rd Session (day 70)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This, again, is a very important motion. It was traditional that women were kind of stereotyped into traditional roles that were considered for women; nurses, social workers like myself, et cetera. We are breaking those barriers. Women are now in mining. They are in construction. They are in heavy equipment. We are still not at par, though. Women in politics is another area that was a barrier. We need to break all of these glass ceilings around us. This is another motion that will allow young women to see politics as a viable career. I fully support this motion, and I...