Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has asked for my opinion as to where the building should be, and it's not really mine to give an opinion on that. I can say, though, in response to one of his questions, there were a number of different alternatives considered. One was the space right beside City Hall. Members will be aware that the city council rejected the old Gerry Murphy site, or a site near the old Gerry Murphy Arena, as a possible location. The WCB looked at assembling land in the downtown core, and they had some discussion about space off of School Draw. So there were a number of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I’d like to thank the committee for this opportunity to discuss Bill 4, An Act to Amend the Education Act.

The key objective of the amendment to the act is to allow division education councils to offer full-day kindergarten programs. The Education Act currently specifies a maximum allowable number of hours of kindergarten instruction equivalent to a half-day program. The changes proposed to the act specify a minimum number of hours, thereby mandating half-day programs while allowing education authorities the option of full-day programs or both half and full-day...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had, in fact, planned to do a Minister's statement on those rates, at one time in the House, but the WCB released the information publicly through a press release, so I didn't feel it would be appropriate any longer because the information was already out there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will commit to have somebody from the department visit the community and the school within 30 days.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Ministers cannot overrule a regulation like this and change the situation retroactively. I am committed to looking at the situation and making a change to the regulations, to ensure that we don't run into this sort of situation again. My goal would be to establish a policy whereby travel assistance is provided on a cash basis, so that everybody can look after their own travel themselves, and we don't get into this sort of situation where we pay minute attention to where people are travelling from or how they're travelling. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will take the question as notice. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, the current situation is that the Minister cannot overrule the regulations. So the way that we deal with issues when they come to our attention, that we have a problem like the one that the Member has brought up, is we look at how we can change the regulations to go forward in ways that we can recognize better results. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to be careful with this one, because the Member is likely aware that the decision of the governance council is currently under appeal before the courts on this issue. So I am not sure that I can answer that question at this point in time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure that we can meet the timeline that the Member has asked for, in terms of getting it on the ice road this year. The department will be meeting with the DEA, and with the residents of Colville Lake, to talk about how we can plan to bring the two structures into one unit. We will do our best to advance things as much as we can, but I can't guarantee that we'll make it on the ice road this winter. We will certainly make it a priority to look at whether we can do that, though. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just for the record, we know that the vast majority of the graduates from our nursing program do stay in the Northwest Territories. That program has proven to be quite successful in getting northerners into nursing.

The Member makes a very good suggestion in terms of getting the training into communities. It’s one we encourage the college to pursue. We have, right now, a mobile lab for welding. The college does move from community to community to offer the Pre-Trades Training Program. That is one of the ways in which we are hoping to expand that training. We do hope to...