Kevin O'Reilly

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did have a question at the end. I asked the Minister: when are we going to get a technical briefing on the instructional hours, and some actual evidence that this is a good move? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to start with some general comments about Education, Culture and Employment. I'll start with our youngest citizens. I've reviewed the business plan for the department, I've reviewed the main estimates, and I'm not sure where we are with the mandate commitment towards universal daycare. So I'll have some questions on that. The two-year deadline is coming up very quickly and I'm not sure what's being done by the department from that front.

Now, I'll talk about junior kindergarten implementation, and issues around this continue no matter what the Minister seems to...

Can the Minister tell me then how does the department usually work with school boards when it comes to capital projects involving expansion of the school? Is there a representative on the Design Committee or an Oversight Committee? How will the department work with the commission on this case and how do they generally approach these matters?

Merci, Monsieur le President. I'd like to answer my question in English about the expansion of Ecole Allain St-Cyr. Can the Minister provide an update on the status of this project? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'll take the deputy minister at her word; I appreciate the response. They've got to find a way to get that kind of message out to MLAs; thankfully, you've done it today, but we've also got to get that out to the public. Thanks, Mr. Chair, that's all I've got.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. So just in case anybody misunderstands, I fully support collective bargaining; it's the right thing to do, and as long as both sides can reach an agreement, that's fantastic. It would be helpful, though, if the Regular MLAs were once in a while actually informed about what's going on with collective bargaining, but that's perhaps a bigger issue.

So the Minister is going to offer a technical briefing; great. Can he tell us, though, the instructional hours for high school students, has this been discussed in detail with Alberta and will our high school students, under the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I want to follow up with the sorts of questions that my colleague from Yellowknife Centre had, because this is a communications problem again. It's not just a communications problem with the public. It's a communications problem with MLAs.

The MOU was signed off as part of the negotiation process. I get that. Some people have said that the reason it was done that way was to avoid having to pay teachers more, and to set an example for other negotiations that are going on. That's the kind of a deal. I don't -- whether that is true or not, you folks can laugh -- it...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister and thank him for his response, but I guess I didn't really get an answer. I want to know specifically what role will the commission have in this particular expansion project. Is there going to be a joint committee that can look at placement, design of the classrooms, make sure that the facility meets the needs of the commission, the francophone community? What exact involvement is the commission going to have as this project moves forward? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the response from the Minister and, yes, this is something that's a passion of mine and it's certainly in my riding. My understanding, Mr. Speaker, is that there has been a submission to Heritage Canada, but there's still some discussions, I guess, going on about what the final design is going to look like, and I don’t believe that there's actually letters of support yet from the commission or the Francophone Parents Association. So is it the intention of the Minister to seek letters of support and come to an agreement on a final design?

Merci, Monsieur le President.

[Translation] Mr. Speaker, I have raised fairly often the idea of increasing the size of a francophone school here in Yellowknife in the riding of Frame Lake. With the cooperation of the francophone school board in the Northwest Territories regarding this important project, as ordered by the court, it seems to be complicated. I asked the Minister of Education to guarantee a cooperative approach at the time of the presentation of the design for the increase in size by Heritage Canada. It seems that we should agree on the elements that will be presented, and that the...