Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for that response in regard to the advance notice on public hearings. Is the Minister prepared to take a closer look at social passing and consider ending this damaging practice where we are setting up our students for failure on social passing in the small communities across the territory? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Let's just get this straight, too. I support my staff in the communities, in my riding, and across the territory. I sat on the education committee in my home community of Tuktoyaktuk for the last three-and-a-half years, and I support them. I support my youth, my youth who ECE is failing. It is not this Minister's fault. It is prior. At the end of the day, the department has to be committed to adopting a more accurate method in getting graduation rates in the NWT, to get more information broken down by the riding. That is all I am asking for. We have our haves and have-nots in our ridings. In...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, it is high school graduation rates in our territory. I wouldn't want to be in the Education Minister's shoes because of yesterday's tabled Auditor General's most recent report on performance audit on Early Childhood to Grade 12 Education across out territory.

Regular Members had the opportunity to meet with the Auditor General staff to hear about the findings, things that shocked me, Mr. Speaker. ECE is using an outdated method to calculate graduation rates. The audit found that ECE reported a graduation rates that are 72 percent in 2017. Using a more accurate...

Madam Premier, you brought up a 48-bed facility going up in Inuvik, which takes our elders out of our community. I need help in regard to keeping our elders home, because we want to take care of our own elders. We don't need them just shipped off to Inuvik, where my people, the people who I represent, can't go see their loved ones. The only time they are going to go see them is if they are on medical or somewhere, because cost of travel is too high, and then when they bring them home for a funeral. That is the problem. I need help in regard to getting a long-term facility in Ulukhaktok, so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I have questions for the Premier. Mr. Speaker, the last five months, basically, we had nothing going on in regard to short-term planning for any kind of jobs that we could create or what's happening with any projects going on because, once you leave Yellowknife and you head into the Delta, we have nothing going on in the Sahtu, nothing going on in my riding. What are her plans on the go-forward to stimulate the economy and jobs in the short term? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Education is key to our success in our territory and to our people and to our youth, because our youth are our future. Will the Minister make a commitment to the Assembly to provide a draft copy of the department's implementation plan in advance so the standing committee can have a public hearing?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. What is the Minister's reaction to the findings of the audit, and in these findings, what concerns him the most? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Today, I would like to consider establishing a dedicated position to manage travel arrangements for cancer patients, with a mandate to expedite travel, to minimize delays for the people who I represent in our small communities in the Beaufort-Delta as a whole, to get a doctor and a care unit going into the communities at least once a year to try to catch cancer. Because, by the time it is caught, it is either stage 3 or stage 4, and you can't do anything, and then we are losing loved ones because of the system. Is the Minister willing to work with me to do a pilot project in the Beaufort-Delta...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I brought up who is not affected by cancer in our great territory. For the people who I represent in Nunakput, to have to travel out for one-day appointments to Inuvik is probably four days because of the timing of flights, and stuff like that. For the safety of my constituents, what I want to bring up, Mr. Speaker, is: is the Minister working with the department to identify cancer for Northerners, and how could we speed the process up to help them travel to get to their appointments? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So many families are affected by cancer. I am asking the Minister today to commit, just say yes with me, on a pilot project for the Beaufort-Delta to establish a team of professionals who will travel into the communities to do pre-screening for our elders and for the people who can't leave the community, who only go to the nursing station when they are really sick. They feel like they are not going to waste people's time, because, you know, they're not feeling well. They have to be really sick to go to the health centre. You know that, Mr. Speaker. All I am asking is if...