Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess I hope we don’t have to invest a significant amount of money in new correctional facilities in the Territories. I would prefer to see increased use of camps and other community-type facilities where possible. Those don’t tend to be as capital intensive. We’re hoping that the level of facilities we’re talking about here, that by 2010 we’re basically done with any big investments for quite some time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have, as I’ve indicated to the Member, already written to the federal Minister. I will, if an opportunity presents itself…Perhaps since we will be in Ottawa in April, we may have an opportunity to put the case face to face to the federal government. I have also communicated with the MP for the Northwest Territories, Mrs. Ethel Blondin-Andrew, to express concern about this issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t have the numbers in that form. But I could tell the Member that our records show that the average occupancy for the unit has been 5.5. It is a six-bed unit, so that indicates that, on clearly most days, the unit has all of the beds occupied.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t believe that I told Mrs. Groenewegen that I wanted all-day kindergarten funded. I think if you want to check the record though, the Standing Committee on Social Programs brought forward a recommendation to this House, which was voted on and passed by this House, that the government funds all-day kindergarten. So there has been a motion passed. It was presented by the Standing Committee on Social Programs. At this point, there hasn’t been a motion passed on this recommendation on remand, so I'm in a position where the Member is asking me to accept that all 11...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, the Government of the Northwest Territories does not receive money exclusively for aboriginal education. The only program that we have where there is something like that is that we administer, on behalf of the federal government, the University and College Entrance Program, which is designed for status and Inuit people only, according to the federal government. They give us a certain block of money. Once that block is gone, that’s all that there is for that program. That is the only program we have where money is specifically identified for education for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have already committed to discuss the issue with the RCMP. There may be some cost implications that I might have to deal with, but I will certainly let the Member know the results of my discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our government is really interested in making sure that kids are well educated in how to make healthy choices. If the Members will remember, earlier this week the Minister of MACA, along with the Minister of Health and Social Services and myself kicked off the program just about healthy choices. We will certainly continue to enforce the need for more education and active living. The Member has raised a good point. Certainly, in my meeting with the chief superintendent in a couple of weeks, I will raise the issue with him and see if there isn’t some way that we can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can tell the Member that Education is working with Municipal and Community Affairs to try to schedule the addition of water to the school at the same time that MACA works with the community to get water treatment into that community. So we are hoping that the planning will be this year and we will be able to move fairly quickly by next year to address the water issue and to address the space issue. There needs to be an addition to accommodate the high school in particular in that community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; the engineer’s report is out. The engineers are confident that the school is safe. It is not in any danger of a situation developing that would be unsafe for the students or the staff in the building. We are going to have to do more work this summer to assess just what sorts of repairs need to be undertaken. It appears that one of the biggest problems was that when the addition was added, they didn’t put an expansion joint between the two parts of the school. So they are moving at different rates, the two parts. How that is going to be handled...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Right now the stage we are at is trying to decide how much of the act we need to open up. We are taking a look at our act in comparison to other acts across Canada to get a sense of where we might be lacking or where there might be room to go to the public and say is this an area that you want us to look at. So I’ve been discussing with the department just what the approach would be, whether we’re going to do a full-blown public consultation of the whole act or if we would just narrow its scope to the areas where we’ve had highlighted now that there may be problems....