Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point, there is not an intergovernmental agency. Education, Culture and Employment is responsible for ensuring that student records are provided on a timely basis to applicants or the individuals who ask us for their records. They are doing that. I have committed to the House already in previous questions here or during this session that the Ministers of the social envelope or the Ministers of Social Programs committee will consider this request to work together. We will ensure that we are operating a coordinated response where that is appropriate. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once the tenders came in or the responses to the proposals came in to the first request for proposals, we found that the prices submitted were well above the budget. So in discussions with Public Works, we looked at other projects that had been undertaken in the Territories for student residences, specifically the one most recently in Fort Smith and were told that if we were to modify the proposal, the design, to reflect the designs that had been used in Fort Smith, that it is likely that we would be able to see the project completed in Inuvik for the amount of money...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good morning. Mr. Speaker, the months of May and June are a popular time to celebrate educational achievement as students graduate from high schools, post-secondary institutions and various technical training programs.

Graduation ceremonies have been taking place throughout the NWT, where achievement is formally acknowledged and grads given awards for their achievements in academics, athletics, fine arts, leadership and community involvement. I have had the pleasure of attending graduation ceremonies this spring in Inuvik and Fort Resolution. I will be attending...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know specifically which policy the Member would be speaking of. I don’t believe that we have policies in place that are intended to harm our residents. I can say that while a regulation is in place, the Minister has no ability to overturn it, but a Minister can change a regulation. If regulations are brought to my attention that are causing problems with our residents or have unintended consequences, as soon as I am aware of that, I issue instructions that the regulations be reviewed and changed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This being early in the fiscal year, I would expect that we haven’t used very much yet of our Student Financial Assistance allocation since the budget was only approved to be effective April 1st. Most of the money goes out in September for the rest of the year. We do typically use almost all of the Student Financial Assistance. In fact, many years we have gone over what we put in the budget and have had to reallocate from other budget line items or else come back to the Assembly for an increase in funding. This Assembly has never turned the department down when they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right that I have written to the Minister’s office. We have had no response to that letter. So I can’t promise that we will get a response even if we follow up again. I will ensure that we are in contact with Minister Solberg’s office to let him know that it is important that we see access to citizenship courts here in the Northwest Territories and that we would like to see that take place very quickly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know specifically which policy the Member would be speaking of. I don’t believe that we have policies in place that are intended to harm our residents. I can say that while a regulation is in place, the Minister has no ability to overturn it, but a Minister can change a regulation. If regulations are brought to my attention that are causing problems with our residents or have unintended consequences, as soon as I am aware of that, I issue instructions that the regulations be reviewed and changed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have probably the most generous Student Financial Assistance Program in Canada at this point. It is one that this Legislative Assembly has agreed we should invest in because of the importance of ensuring northern residents are well educated. It is a shared program. There is responsibility on students and their families to contribute as well. The expectation is, particularly for those who are going into programs like medicine or law, we know they are going to have tremendous earning power. It’s not that they are cut off from Student Financial Assistance; they can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am a fan of life-long learning, so I enjoy seeing people getting back into school and continuing on with their education, but the simple fact is we don’t have unlimited funds. That was one of the reasons the limits were put there. Even if we were to take away the "in your lifetime" sentence, still right now we tie the amount of contributions to the years of schooling. So there is one semester of funding for every year of schooling, which means that maximum for somebody who has been schooled in the Northwest Territories for 12 years is 12 semesters, or typically to a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have recently written the federal Minister to encourage him to appoint more citizenship court judges and particularly here in the Northwest Territories. I have asked that be done as soon as possible. I have not yet been able to confirm that we will not have a ceremony in the Territories this summer, but my office, when informed by the Member that this was likely, we started to follow up on that and we will pressure Citizenship and Immigration Canada to try and find a way to have citizenship court here this summer. Thank you.