Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am sorry to belabour this point, but what I am talking about here is communicating the policy direction. The policy direction we are going to go despite lamenting low attendance and low achievement rates is to cut instructional hours, and here is why. That is the kind of detail that parents want. I think they appreciate that there is another level of decision-making at the school that will decide how to implement this policy direction, but they want to hear the policy direction from the department. They don't want to hear it from me, and they don't want to hear it from...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just in response to the deputy minister's last answer, there are some significant loose ends around instructional hours at this point, specifically whether there are enough hours for the high school courses to count toward the diploma and be equivalent to Alberta.

Given the fact that the department had months of lead time  I think the first MOU was signed in September  where is the problem here in trying to give the information to the primary stakeholder here, which is the parent? I mean, the students often are too young to be considered the primary stakeholders, although...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I like the trend in this question period where I am asked the question. Mr. Speaker, the question about the family violence attitude survey, it is $100,000. That is what it cost before, and it is a very important planning tool in order for the government to make the best use of the money they have in preventing family violence. I would like to think that it is not an either/or. I would like to think that, where the Minister is careful to do planning in other parts of his portfolio, that he would also consider this to be an important planning tool.

I recognize that money is...

Thank you to the Minister for what sounds like a promising approach. I note that What Will It Take is really about empowering bystanders to intervene in family violence situations. I think that that is another downstream problem. The upstream problem is consent. I think that that is the approach that needs to be taken now, is to ensure that people understand what consent is. I am wondering if the Minister has any plans to pursue that line of thought?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and, Mr. Speaker, that's excellent news. I think the other side of this is to make sure that police officers have better training to deal with complaints as they come in. I'm wondering if the Minister can tell us what changes might be made in training police officers to respond to sexual assault complaints? Mahsi.

I appreciate that the Minister read the article, but he did not respond to my question. So I'm going to ask again what he is going to do as Minister to bring these unfounded sexual assault complaints down? There are a number of very specific practical actions that are being taken by his counterpart in the Yukon, where the police are also on contract to address this problem directly beyond just having a meeting. What is his response?

Thank you, colleagues. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. To realize the spirit of Hush Hush No More, we must change hearts and minds. This will be hard work, Mr. Speaker. Change involves opening policing practice to thorough review and regular public oversight. It also means facing and changing biases ingrained in our cultures and in ourselves. To truly bring an end to sexual violence, we must walk the talk; we must believe all women, promote reporting, investigate complaints sensitively and thoroughly, and bring justice to all women who have been victimized. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I am going to try one more time. The government has made a policy decision here on instructional hours, to pilot the reduction in instructional hours. It is the government's responsibility to communicate with parents, not through any intermediary who is tasked with implementing this, but to tell parents and students what the rationale is for this policy, what the benefits are, what consideration was made to alternatives, and so on and so forth. It is not up to the school boards to do that. They are following instructions. Eighty per cent of the Yellowknife school board budgets come from...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Minister, but that completely misses the point. This is an agreement between the GNWT and the Teachers' Association. The onus is on the GNWT to communicate with parents about the MOU that they reached with the Teachers' Association and to be proactive in telling them what this project is about, how it is going to be evaluated, and what impact it will have on their kids. I mean, up to this point there are no clear answers on this from the government, and I believe that it is the government's role. It is not good enough to say, well, each school needs to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I would like to talk about the allocation to the petroleum resources division. I would like to know, of the seven staff who work there now, how many of them are specialists only within petroleum resources? Thank you.