Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We raised the rates in 2004. There is a survey done every two years, in conjunction with the Audit Bureau, and we typically try to raise the rates or change the rates as they need to reflect the cost of living in different communities.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, we don’t have with us the detail for the year 2003-04, so I can’t answer right now the Member’s question. I can promise that we will get the information for the Member by tomorrow, but I can’t tell him right now.

Madam Chair, I don’t have a clue. Sorry. I can’t answer that question. I can try to get the information for the Member, but it’s not a statistic that we would keep.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just today I got an e-mail message from an MLA who said a constituent of theirs who is disabled and has lived in another jurisdiction commented to them that ours is probably the best system in Canada for disabled people, in terms of supports.

I think we need to be careful not to say that people with challenges, whether they are physical or intellectual, all want to be treated differently. I think a lot of people feel that they are able to participate and want to be treated like others, so each person is an individual. We have people who you might call severely disabled...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps I will just deal with the Member's last question first, where he is talking about the $700,000. Just so that he doesn’t think that I manage to keep any of it between my front and my back pocket, that money is all going to Alberta. That is what they are charging us to use their Alberta achievement tests, which is the test that we are using in grades 3, 6 and 9. They have started charging us now for using their Grade 12 tests. Not one penny of those dollars is sticking in my pockets, with this Assembly passing it on to Alberta. Just so you know.

In terms of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The GNWT will contribute a minimum of $1.5 million each year, for the next four years, to meet our partnership requirements. That money includes both mining and oil and gas. So that’s the total each year for mining and oil and gas.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We could certainly work on finding that information. This is very similar to the written question submitted by Mr. Villeneuve. He asked for some of the exact same information and some more detailed questions as well. So we are working on putting that together. All of the information will be provided to the House relatively soon.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said, as long as the apprentice works with either an apprenticeship officer or CDO to make sure that the training is recognized and approved by us. If you’re going to NAIT or SAIT or some other recognized institution, then there should not be a problem. It should be no problem at all.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The $300,000 reduction is to the Workplace Literacy Program. It does not affect the funding that would flow to the Literacy Council or community literacy programs. As Members know, we were tasked to find reductions throughout government and one of the areas we looked for was where the funding wasn’t being used on a consistent basis, and what we found was in that program $300,000 was being lapsed consistently because businesses weren’t coming to us with applications to use it. So we don’t think that this will lead to a large impact, because it’s money that wasn’t...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, I can’t. We don’t have that information. We could endeavour to have it delivered to Mr. Hawkins tomorrow.