Don Stewart

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I mean, I think the Member is right there are places that do these sorts of things. But as the Minister said, everybody has the same interest here in terms of wanting to get the best outcomes for our students. It's complex, but I think it's something that we definitely should be looking at in the coming years in terms of those alternative school years and, in particular, given our northern context and some of our smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of the Member's comments around the needs side, we actually just completed a project with the regional inclusive schooling coordinators, where they did an assessment of every kid in the Northwest Territories in terms of a variety of factors in terms of the needs they may have. They did a lot of work in advance of that to make sure there was consistency from region to region. It is probably the best snapshot we have had in a long time because it was the regional inclusive schooling coordinators working with teachers in the school to try to get a sense of the kinds...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That early work in 201415 and into 201516 was really getting the system in place. It is there now. Now, we are into the stage of some level of customization and those sorts of things that the boards wants to see in terms of being able to report out attendance and making sure that the report cards are being generated and all of that sort of stuff. I think we are at a much more manageable phase now where the pace is more controllable in terms of making sure that we don't need to make those big onetime expenditures. I think we are pretty confident that we will not have to...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think we can try for 201617. I wouldn't be surprised if it's early next fiscal year though, realistically, with some of the other changes, there's a lot of consultation, I think, that needs to be done on this one in terms of what we should include in that type of legislation. I think realistically it may be next fiscal year that you see actual legislation on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. As the Minister mentioned, the $3.8 million is around support for Aboriginal language revitalization efforts as well as those types of programs, and then on the French side it's also related to the delivery of French language services that came out of the court case. For the schools, it is a pot of money that's provided that is added to by the money that the GNWT provides, and that obviously covers both the O and M side and any of the capital that's required. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There's two components to these changes. The one is the change, as the Minister talked about, to the Income Assistance Regulations to make sure that we're not counting Canada Child Benefit as well as the NWT Child Benefit, as well as support payments to families on income assistance in calculating that level. That'll take place in, as the Minister mentioned, August 1st assessing July income, so that'll have that impact. In terms of the NWT Child Benefit, there's a couple changes that are needed. One is changes to legislation, specifically the NWT Income Tax Act, so we'll...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Minister has noted, the Healthy Children Initiative, when we did the review of the program one of the things that was noted about that program was that a lot of the funds that went out to it was for general wages and salaries inside of daycares. The numbers that reflect here reflect the first part of the year we had the old programs and now we're rolling out the new programs. There is going to be much more concentrated approach to the Early Childhood Intervention Program to make sure it's going to kids with special needs, and so what we've done is allocate a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Minister noted, we fund the Literacy Council through a variety of specific projects that they deliver on behalf of our department. Last year, their funding was about $922,000. A portion of it is here, but there are portions elsewhere as well for adult literacy as well as other programs. We would expect the funding to be similar this year as it was last year. Many of our contribution agreements with them are multiyear, so they are pretty consistent in terms of their funding levels. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The amount in 2014-15 is quite large because of the cost of litigation related to residential schools. It was a one-time expenditure that we had to pay out on the residential school amounts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Minister said, as the Member would know, there was an appeal of the court order. The Francophone representatives have indicated that they are appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada, and we’re waiting to hear from the Supreme Court as to whether they’re going to take up that case or not. The Francophone Association suggested to us that we should wait until we get that answer back before we proceed from there, and we agreed with that proposal that we’ll hold off on starting anything until we hear whether the Supreme Court is going to take the appeal or not.