Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, we’re in the process of reviewing our income security programs, all of them right now. Over the course of the next six months to a year, yes, we will be looking at all of our programs. But there are some specific aspects of the public housing rental subsidy that we will be looking at definitely in the next six months and one of them is the change in the way that the month is used to determine what your rent is. Previously, the housing associations were using the rent based on, for instance, if you went in on February 28th and said here’s what my...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll be in touch with the department immediately to see how quickly we can arrange that. I can’t promise within the next two days, but we will ensure that it happens as quickly as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In one of the supplementary bills that will be shortly before this House there will be some money from the previous commitments made by the former government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are hoping, through the business planning process, to be able to build on the federal government’s addition of $100 monthly to all parents with children under the age of six by increasing the user subsidies in the next business planning process. That should then allow day cares to increase their charges to parents. That should help to alleviate the problems that day cares may face with funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Aurora College, through the Aurora Research Institute, has been asked by the Government of Canada and NRCAN and the Japanese Oil Gas and Metals National Corporation to assist with the delivery of a major research project in the Inuvik region. This is called the Mallick Gas Hydrate Research Program. With us today in the gallery we have a number of key players as we try and move this project towards fruition. I’d like to recognize the leaders of each of the parts of the team. The Japanese scientist team is lead by Mr. Kenji Ohno, who is the general...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The money is proposed to be allocated on a regional basis. So, yes, there will be some money available for operators in Yellowknife. We believe that this money will help the operators. If they are facing a financial challenge, for whatever reason, this money will be available to them to defray other expenses that they would otherwise have to take out of their operation. So, yes, we think that this money will help the operators in Yellowknife. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess as a Legislative Assembly we could have a discussion about the policy and whether or not we think that the no-fault insurance way in which the WCB has operated is the way that we want to do it. We could get rid of the WCB, bring in private insurance like they do in the States, and allow all sorts of litigation in order to see whether or not people get compensation. I think the system that we have, Mr. Speaker, is one that works well. There are some people who don’t feel that they’ve been satisfied and we have, with Valic’s situation, a case where the courts have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The board has announced or said that they are not going to appeal the Valic decision. As I said, they are reviewing their policy. Their policy will be rewritten. They had, in September of 2004, issued a new policy for pain which dealt specifically with chronic pain and had felt that at that time that that policy would be in compliance with court decisions at that time. Now they are in light of more recent court decisions and they are reviewing their policy. So the understanding of the field has changed and the board is responding to that reality and will have a policy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We need to be careful that we are not using these tests for comparison purposes, because we can’t. These tests are administered in our jurisdiction in a far different way than they are anywhere else that they are used. We don’t allow or don’t have the exclusions that are found in other jurisdictions, so that means that all of our students are participating in these exams whether they are on an individual education program or a modified program. In many other jurisdictions, that doesn’t happen. So we don’t have comparison.

These tests are designed for us to take a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will certainly be following up on this. We have had some initial discussions with the chairs of all the divisional education councils across the Northwest Territories. Since the report the Member talks about has come out, there have been some changes to the formula that is used to fund schools and the funding has been disproportionately increased for the small schools in comparison to larger schools in recognition of some of those challenges. We are planning to continue our work with divisional educational councils to ensure that we are delivering as good a program...