Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my left I have Chief Electoral Officer Mr. David Brock and to my right I have Ken Chutskoff, legislative counsel.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the Board of Management of the Legislative Assembly, I am pleased to present Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act.

This bill includes a number of changes to our elections legislation that were recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer and the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures following their respective reports on the 2011 General Election.

These changes will result in:

more accurate voters lists;

better access to mobile polls and absentee ballots;

changes to the vouching rules, so that a voter can vouch for another elector in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll continue on the PTR. I’m just wondering if the Minister can give me a definition of what PTR includes, because there are questions of whether our principals, vice-principals and classroom assistants are included in PTR. Are they included in the PTR?

Mr. Speaker, that’s part of the difficulty and the fact that if you’re dealing with a small centre and you only have three or four students, then that ratio is thrown off completely in some of the bigger communities, Fort Smith and Hay River, for example, in the South Slave, where the ratios may be 25 or 30 to 1.

I’m just wondering if the Minister could look at individuals, especially on the implementation of junior kindergarten.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s great to see some youth in the audience today. Like you indicated today, there are quite a few graduations going on in the Northwest Territories.

I guess I’d like to speak about the education system right now. It’s in a bit of turmoil and the fact is there are lot of DEAs and authorities that are looking at what’s going on in the education system today.

Junior kindergarten is being rolled out by the government. We’ve had lots of questions in this House. This session has been mainly about asking… Every MLA has asked questions on junior kindergarten or education...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the other volunteer groups that have come to me recently is the Canadian Rangers, obviously a great volunteer organization, as you all know.

I guess the question is: What are the leave requirements for GNWT staff that are members of the Rangers?

Mr. Speaker, the next question I have is I understand this leave is something you probably have to apply for, but I’m wondering if we have any agreements or any leave in place for short-term demand or quick demands on volunteers, such as firefighters in the Northwest Territories. My colleague from Inuvik talked about his firefighters and department. In Hay River we have a strong firefighters group as well.

I’m just wondering: what agreement does a firefighter have to have with the GNWT to take immediate action when there’s a fire?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I assume, along with myself and yourself, that all the Members here will encourage all the youth of the Northwest Territories who are congregating in Hay River tonight to be in the 24th Annual Track and Field for the Northwest Territories.

---Applause

This event, like I indicated, has over 1,100 athletes and a couple hundred volunteers from the community that are helping to feed, to house and to manage where everybody goes. My assistant is out there working on the shot put event right now. The weather typically is either hot or cold or rainy, and this year we got cold. It...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a very big topic we are discussing today. I thank the mover and the seconder for this motion to come forward and discuss some of the hydraulic fracturing in the Northwest Territories.

In November 2012 the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure did a report to this House and indicated there were some recommendations we wanted done. We wanted some baseline studies to be accomplished. We wanted to adopt standards throughout the whole phase of the implementation, the monitoring of the land and waters, the monitoring of greenhouse gases. Public...

Mr. Speaker, the question about the short-term leave for firefighters has come up over the last couple of weeks when we’ve had two major fires in the community. I’m just wondering: in that review, will there be something that once you have a firefighter on staff, that basically there is no requirement; he or she can be called on demand for the firefighter services once they’ve agreed that they’re allowed to be in the GNWT and be a firefighter at the same time? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.