Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the years, the courthouse has become too small for the number of cases that are held in it. Right now, in the last year, we have had rented space outside the courthouse for a large civil case: the Giant Mine trial. With that one, we spent over $355,000. Just since Christmas, we’ve had to rent space in one of the local hotels for courts and we will again this year. We know about another large trial that’s coming up later this spring that we’re going to have to rent space outside the courthouse. What’s happened is that the growth in the number of cases that are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The chairs of the divisional education councils and I have talked about attendance as one of the crucial areas that we want to increase. The education councils know that if they don’t have the kids in school, they don’t get the money for them; so attendance really does impact on the amount of money that is available to a divisional educational authority for schooling.

I have talked to principals who go out and knock on doors to talk to families to get the kids in school. DEAs are working out all sorts of different strategies within their communities -- whatever works...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not aware of any parents having been taken to court because their children were not in school.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon. Many times in this House we have discussed the importance of languages to all northerners. The diversity of official languages recognized in the Northwest Territories makes us unique in Canada.

During March we celebrate the value and importance of languages to our northern life. March is:

Aboriginal Languages Month

March 6th to 20th Les Rendez-vous de la Francophonie celebrates Francophone culture

March 20th is International Francophonie Day

The Government of the Northwest Territories is committed to the support of all our official languages and this is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There will be the planning process that will involve the architects, typical of any capital project that’s going forward in the Northwest Territories, whether it’s a school or a hospital. Will there be a consultation process? It’s not intended to go out and consult all across the Northwest Territories for what the building will look like, no more than was done for this building. The process is one that we will try and do economically, which means we will find out from studies what space is needed and how to best accommodate that in the most economic fashion. Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In a democratic system, as the Member is aware, the courts are an independent leg of the governance process. So we have the government, the Assembly and the courts. It’s a responsibility of the government to support the courts with adequate fiscal resources to conduct their business and adequate physical space to conduct their business. So we are going to follow through on that requirement. Mr. Speaker, when Public Works and Services did their assessment, they advised us that the net present value of leasing equivalent space in the Territories was in the order of $60...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, where we’ve seen significant changes in project costs have been through the construction management process and this government is not prepared to undertake that process for this building. We are going to get the full set of plans done and then go out to public tender. Once we have the results in, we will award the contract. That way you know what the cost of the building is going to be. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The estimate that we have was provided by Public Works and Services. It is a Class 'D', so an initial estimate, and it was prepared by Public Works and Services within the last few months, just since fall. Right now they have estimated the cost to be about $41 million.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe we need anything further to empower anybody to follow up on things. A DEA has the authority now to ensure that kids are attending school; it could become a child protection issue if parents aren’t ensuring that their kids attend school. We already have the tools to do it from that side, but that is not going to work. That doesn’t help the kid to be successful. Forcing them to be there when their parents don’t support them being in school is a waste of time. We have to work with families to make sure that the families are supportive of kids being in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to challenge one thing that the Member said and that is that truancy is becoming more and more of a problem. In fact in the last 10 years, the attendance at school has increased dramatically across the Northwest Territories.

---Applause

Ten years ago the attendance rate for high-school-aged children in the Northwest Territories was less than 40 percent; this year it is well over 70 percent. We are making impressive strides in getting children all across the Territories to attend school.

If the Member wants to look into it, I have been asked this question...