Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

I’d just like to welcome the N.J. Macpherson students that are here, all the students that are wearing pink. It’s a great day to wear pink. And all the supporters who are here with us in the gallery as well, mahsi cho for coming.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I have with me to my left, Gabriela Eggenhofer, my deputy minister of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment; Paul Devitt, director of strategic business; and also Dana Heide, the new associate deputy minister in ECE. Thank you.

I am pleased to present the 2013-14 Main Estimates for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

The department’s operations expense summary proposes an overall ECE budget of $299.611 million, an increase of 3.6 percent over the 2012-13 Main Estimates. Of this amount, about $213 million will be paid out in contributions for the delivery of a range of programs. This includes over $183 million to support the operation of our NWT school and college education systems and another $15.5 million to account for the amortization of department facilities and other assets.

I would like to now...

I have given specific directive to the school boards on Aboriginal programming. The funding that we provide, we want specifically for on-the-land programs to deal with cultural and language preservation. Those are areas that we continue to monitor. We work closely with the school boards as well. Part of the residential school curriculum that we’ve developed has been very positive to date. It is very preliminary right now. We just wrote it out in October 2012. We’re getting a lot of positive feedback. That is reflecting on the northern perspective. There is also a social studies program that we...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When we talk about the Education system in the Northwest Territories, it covers everyone in the Northwest Territories. The Aboriginal content the Member is referring to, I need to get the detailed stats on that. I don’t have it in front of me but I can provide it to Members.

Mr. Speaker, today is the official Anti-Bullying Day, a day celebrated during the last Wednesday of February of each year. I am pleased we are wearing pink carnations today, marking a day of protest against bullying. This action was started by two brave young men in Nova Scotia, David Shepherd and Travis Price, who gave away 50 pink shirts after a Grade 9 student was bullied for wearing a pink shirt to school.

These two young men raised national awareness of a significant societal problem that does not just exist in our schools but is all too common in our society generally. It is a cancer that...

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I would just like to thank the Members for their comments. There are a lot of important comments pertaining to this budget and a lot of areas for long-term strategies as well.

First of all, there was a discussion on Sachs Harbour boarding and so forth. I believe part of the discussion that we had regarding e-learning is that is the way to go now. There’s been a question whether there will be an investment in eLearning and why we didn’t see it in the budget. This is a brand new area that we are exploring. I’d like to see us invest in those areas the next business planning...

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

When I say communities, I’m talking about 33 communities that we service here in the Legislative Assembly. My department services eight school boards within the Northwest Territories, so I work closely with them.

Again, there are schools out there that are delivering First Aid and CPR and they continue to do that. When I say community, whether it be Yellowknife, whether it be Tsiigehtchic and a small community, you know, there are always, like, these different, various training programs from agencies that come in to deliver those programs. We, as a department, will continue to work with them...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. These are part of courses that are being delivered throughout the communities. It’s not really part of the schools. Some of the schools are currently delivering these modules, the First Aid and CPR, so we encourage those individual students that are willing to take First Aid and CPR training, because a lot of them are being delivered in the communities. Whether it be through various training, heavy equipment or other training that’s happening in the community, they always provide WHMIS or First Aid or CPR training that’s happening.

That’s what we’ve found out from our...