Robert Bouchard

I guess I have this question for Education, as well as all the other Members, and some of the other Members will ask some of the same questions. I know we’ve had meetings with the Parent Action Committee how they can make it move forward, the Ecole Boreale process, but is the department looking at ways like private partnership agreements? I know education probably hasn’t been the keenest area in to do this, but if a proposal comes forward with some private funding to put in 10 percent or 20 percent of the cost, are we looking to do that and would that move the process forward in putting it on...

Thank you. I call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee, Ms. Bisaro?

You mentioned Ecole Boreale, and I mentioned to the Minister under general comments, and I’m just wondering about the development and the planning that we’re doing with the French schools in both Yellowknife and Hay River. We know that we’re in a situation that we’ve been told that we have to spend money. We’ve been told that we don’t have to spend as much money, but we know we’re going to have to spend money eventually in the whole system.

Are we just burying our head in the sand and ignoring this issue or are we somewhere down the line, even if it’s four or five years down the line, putting...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Minister; I think we have a great SFA if you fit into the cookie cutter and this is the way you did it: You went to Grade 12, next year you go to school. But if you don’t fit into that cookie cutter system that we have, you’re in trouble. You are going to have to fight and scream for every dollar and you are going to have to fight with your own territorial government to get support. We are looking for flexibility, not a stringent box.

Will the Minister commit to making this SFA flexible for those people who don’t fit into that box?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There’s one other. Princess Alexandra is the other one. I’m not sure if he has that on the list there somewhere.

The Minister has indicated that it’s a policy. The point is you don’t need to evaluate it. We don’t need to monitor it. We need students to come back. We need Northerners to come back to the North.

Why do we need to monitor this? Why not give our staff the ability to change that? The Minister has the power to make that with the swipe of his pen.

Can he commit to changing this policy right here? Don’t monitor it. We are getting Northerners back to the Northwest Territories. It should be a no-brainer. Will he commit to that?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some questions and a few comments. First, it’s good to see some of the schools that are getting on there. Obviously, I’ve heard Mr. Menicoche talk about that facility a few times. I guess this department is not much different than all of the other departments that we look at. We’re talking about capital infrastructure and how it’s being assessed and I think the Minister talked a little bit about that, but how the different schools get assessed on when they’re going to be retrofitted or when there’s going to be a new school being built and how is that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past four years, it’s been an interesting job, but in some ways it’s been frustrating. Our government sometimes has flaws in it. We see that through some of the constituents who we have. A lot of these constituents are low income or students.

One of the examples that I’m going to talk about today is we have some students who have grown up in the Northwest Territories, lived here all their life, went from kindergarten to Grade 12, after Grade 12 moved on, decided they were going to go somewhere else, to some other jurisdiction for a year or two, and now want to...

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Miltenberger.