Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When it comes to housing for staff, especially the teachers, we look after all the teachers as much as we can through the board operations. For the 2010-2011 school year, the teachers that were hired, there were no reports of positions going unfilled because of lack of suitable accommodations. As we all know, the northern living allowance, we take that into consideration as well, where each teacher, individual community members do receive those allowances based on their posting. So if they’re in an isolated community, they get a higher northern living allowance, as well...

Mr. Speaker, our priority is to deliver programs to each and every community to serve those students, to serve the community members. When we talk about infrastructure in communities, we have to work in partnership with the communities because there is limited access to infrastructure in the communities, as well. We have to work with those isolated communities, with what they have on hand and work with them. If there needs to be a new building that needs to come up, we need to work with the community government, the school boards and our department, the GNWT.

Mr. Speaker, It’s not just one...

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we’ve heard about this particular case in Trout Lake, the school, whether it be the capacity, the space itself. Due to that fact, we have identified funding to provide technical upgrades as identified in the VFA Canada reporting and program issues, in an attempt to provide better teaching space. Those are the areas that we are focusing on right now, Mr. Speaker, and we are listening to the Member and also the community. We will be visiting the community in due time. Mahsi.

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi. Part of our overall objectives and action plan is to deal with preventative measures, not just our department, also GNWT wide, and the RCMP “G” Division as well. So those are issues we need to take at hand where a concern is being raised.

The individual may or may not be stealing money or materials and we need to prevent those things from happening, what can we do now to deal with those issues. I think formally we can deal with the top guy, the chief superintendent of the RCMP “G” Division and along with the Member and my Department of Justice to deal with this matter at hand and how we...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I have with me to my left, Mark Aitken, director of legislative division; and Gary McDougall, director of legal registries. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This particular incident, along with others in the Northwest Territories, is under RCMP “G” Division. They have their own federal jurisdiction laws that they have to follow, and what I can do as the Minister of Justice is to sit down and meet with the chief superintendent to highlight the concerns that are being addressed here today. I’m sure it’s been addressed within “G” Division already and I’m sure that there are processes being undertaken.

With that, I can pass on the concern that the Members have risen to the chief superintendent and discuss what action needs to be...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to be here today to speak to Bill 3, Electronic Transactions Act. I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Social Programs for its review of this bill.

Legal relationships have long been based on paper documentation, and most laws use language that refers to paper documents. Over the past generation, however, more and more people have begun communicating through the Internet and by e-mail. The result is that documents and information are now routinely shared electronically.

Mr. Chair, to some extent, courts have come to terms with technology: people have...

I’ll definitely pursue that. Whatever we do at this venue is interdepartmental. There is a lot of discussion on programming, working with the Yellowknife committee, the social committee. I will be working with my colleagues as we move forward on this particular important piece of work.