Robert Bouchard

Does the Minister know how these extraordinary costs can be covered through the GNWT finances?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize constituent Mr. Roy Courtoreille, member of the UNW and a long time Hay River resident and a member of the large Courtoreille family that are distinguished in Hay River. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I’m just wondering if the Minister believes or has evaluated whether we have actually a large enough base in our fire suppression budget so that we don’t have to always come back to this House. I know typically this is an exceptional year, but have we evaluated the base budget for fire suppression?

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act, be read for the third time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question to this is the amendment to this advertising on the day of polling, I guess, does that mean current advertising that has been in place has to be removed or is the addition of advertising and polling the day prior to or the day of?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be voting in favour of this motion.

As I indicated today in my Member’s statement and I’ve indicated in the House before, along with all my colleagues here all the way from the north all the way to the south, this is an issue, this funding is an issue.

We continue to get e-mail after e-mail from our district education authorities, but there are more and more questions about how this will roll out, how junior kindergarten will be funded, how it will affect the Aboriginal Head Start program. In the community of Hay River, how will it affect the playschool program...

Again, the same question is the difficulty in the fact that when you have an authority, such as the South Slave District Authority, where there are small communities, large communities and medium-sized communities, those ratios are thrown off by some of the ratios in the smaller communities where there is maybe only three or four students to one teacher, whereas in the bigger centres you have 25 or 30 students. That 16 to 1, in theory, should be held accountable to every school, let’s say every local district education authority at least.

Is the Minister willing to look at that opportunity for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will continue the conversation and questions about junior kindergarten that my colleagues have been asking for the last couple of weeks. There’s a lot of frustration and it’s almost to the point where, you know, we’re very frustrated with the process. My questions for the Minister today are the pupil-teacher ratio that he indicates 16 to 1, is this a ratio that each school will be looked at independently or is he looking at the complete authority at a 16 to 1 ratio, because there’s a big discrepancy between the smaller centres and the larger centres in what the ratios...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek consent to waive Rule 34(1) and proceed with the third reading of Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act.

---Consent granted