Kevin O'Reilly

Thanks, Madam Chair. My questions are going to be detailed as well. So thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Speaker. I had a few comments, some of which I may have made in Committee of the Whole, but, yeah, I want the public to know that I'm in Edmonton with my family. I recognize the hardship that the current situation has caused 70 percent of the Northwest Territories residents, but I believe that we need to continue to focus on firefighting and saving the communities, and I want to thank the firefighters, the contractors, the volunteers for the work that they're doing. Of course, I also want to thank the Albertans that have shown us tremendous support here in Alberta and thank...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the mover and the seconder for bringing forward the bill, but the public should know that we received by email exactly one hour before this special sitting. So I really haven't had a lot of time to consider the bill, and I think it's kind of very unusual to get a bill in this manner. Of course, these are very unusual times.

I do share, I think the intent of wanting to improve emergency management, and I think that's a shared value amongst us all and if it isn't, we are not doing our jobs. But I guess I do question about whether this is the right...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. It's very helpful to get this information on the record and out there.

Another issue is that the department says transition must happen before the contract with Alberta Education ends for the administration of diploma exams. But, Mr. Speaker, this really shouldn't matter. Students did not write diploma exams while learning remotely during the pandemic. So will the Minister look at revising the timeline for this exam's requirement or eliminate it? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. In August 2023, grade 4 to 6 and grade 9 classes in all NWT schools will be transitioning from the Alberta curriculum of studies to the BC system. All other school grades will transition in subsequent years.

While ECE officials have been working on this for years, teachers working directly with students have not. The word I've received is that teachers are not ready to make this transition because the basic groundwork has not been done. I've been told that ECE put together a number of working groups to adapt the BC curriculum to an NWT perspective, and that is very...

Sorry, Mr. Speaker, I'm not finished yet. So I again owe to my constituents and the public to explain how I'm going to vote on this one. I'm very concerned that the supplementary reserve will be exceeded on this very first sup for 20232024 on the operations side, and I believe that there's going to be lots more spending required as a result of the fires and floods. So I don't think that this is good financial management, especially in relation to the climate emergency and that we have to have a much larger supplementary reserve in the future like we did two years ago where it was $65 million.

S...

Merci, Madame la Presidente. I move that the chair rise and report progress. Mahsi.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister again for that. It's helpful to get this information out there. It's not clear, though, how colleges and universities that still base their entry requirements on percentage grades will treat NWT students applying for admission when we start to switch to a proficiency scale. So it's also not clear how this proficiency scale grading will impact scholarships and it's not clear how parents are going to be informed about the new assessment scale either.

So can the Minister tell us what implementation measures ECE has developed to make sure...

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Teachers need time and training to roll out the new and adjusted BC curriculum here in the Northwest Territories. Teachers may be expected to complete five 2hour courses over the summer. Apparently, these courses aren't ready yet. This information was found on social media, not in formal announcement from the department or their education authorities. So can the Minister tell us when the training materials will be ready and delivered to teachers? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I know I'm the only thing that stands between the Members and their lunch but I do owe it to my constituents and the public to explain how I'm going to vote on this bill.

This bill, what it does or what happened, of course, is that about 50 percent of the capital spending for 20222023 was not spent. The authorized capital was not spent. So what this does would increase capital spending by about $125 million pushing it to levels higher than five of the last six years and so the over budgeting that's happening here for capital, I can't support this. What it does is...