Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, education of our children is right up there with the health of our citizens in terms of its importance in determining quality of life, and I believe that the constituents of Range Lake have every right to expect the very best out of this government. This is the best gift that life in the North has given to me, and I take my job of improving on this tradition very seriously, and I have to tell you that this Minister and this government is not doing a very good job in this regard.

Mr. Speaker, reducing the PTR and reducing special needs funding is not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are in line with the statement I made earlier about the energy issues that the Cabinet read out earlier today. Mr. Speaker, my question goes to the Minister of Public Works and Services. I believe in the long run that this has to be about reduction of consumption no matter where the energy cost levels are. They go up and down. We have no idea how bad this is going to be and for how long. I think that we have to be always vigilant. We live in a very affluent society. We like to have big houses and big cars and such. We forget that we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe the supplementary funding that the Minister will be bringing forward will have some of this information. Could the Minister indicate when we should expect to have this information in the House, so we can have further discussion on the details of what he is proposing? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to narrow my supplementary question to individual homes rather than the government, although I started on two and I might have confused the Minister. I know the Minister is referring to many of the committees and meetings and, God only knows, the studies we did in the last Assembly, spending millions of dollars. If we spent that money trying to make our homes more efficient, we might be a lot better off now. Mr. Speaker, the Minister indicated in his Minister's statement about working with the Arctic Energy Alliance and the supplementary funding that he will...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to what appears to be a theme day on the part of the Cabinet on energy issues. Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I like some of the points raised by Cabinet, especially the fact that the Arctic Energy Alliance is going to receive the kind of respect and financial resources that I believe they have deserved for a long time. There was lots of warm and fuzzy stuff said in those statements, but if anybody was looking for a very specific financial break in regard to the rising fuel costs, I don’t think anything was to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that answer. Mr. Speaker, I really like this thermal scan thing. I think that that is something that we should use a lot more, and I know that we are going to use this for government buildings and huge buildings. I think we should somehow set up a program where individual homeowners could use this service at a low cost or no cost to see how energy efficient their homes are. Failing that, I am sure there are experts in our communities who could do this. Will the government look into helping our people do that; help with the cost of getting...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to get clarification from the Minister. He indicates that he talks to the chairs of school boards and such. I hope he is not saying that the school board chairs or any of the education professionals have been telling him that the extent of needs for special needs funding is no more than 15 percent. I hope he is not saying that. If he is looking into this question, will he make a commitment that he will live up to the obligation to provide support to students who need it and that he will provide support to every student who needs it once he finds out what the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister read out the provision that states that every student who is in need of special needs support has to be receiving it. I suggest to the Minister and this government and even this Legislature that we are not living up to that legislative requirement, Mr. Speaker. There are many cases, and I am sure we could all name students from our very own region who, even from a layperson’s view, are in need of special needs and they don’t get them. There are students in our school system with autism without special needs support. Mr. Speaker, by writing...

It is amazing how some of the men could put their foot in their mouth. Sorry. Mr. Speaker, may I just take this opportunity to welcome the best friends of Yellowknife from Tlicho, Chief Leon Lafferty, Chief Gon and Chief NItsiza, as well as former Commissioner Dan Marion. I realize they have been recognized before, but I just want to send a special welcome as well as to our elders in our community, Mr. Ed Jeske and Bishop Sperry. It is always nice to see them. I hope they come every day and watch over us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is indeed good to be back here and I also would like to welcome the new Member for Monfwi. It’s a real pleasure to have him, and I look forward to working with him in years to come.

Mr. Speaker, in the last six years that I’ve been here I’m very proud of the little part that I played in increasing the funding for our schools in general, especially in special needs funding. We tout the fact that we have reduced the PTR from 18 to one to 16 to one. We repeatedly talk about the fact that we increased the special needs funding from eight percent of the total school budget...