Wendy Bisaro

Thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I wanted to ask some questions about inclusive schooling, and I’m going to kind of follow-up where Mr. Hawkins left off. I’m really disappointed to hear the deputy minister say that we cannot fund inclusive schooling by need. It’s a statement that this will not happen. My understanding is we currently fund per capita or per student, but I also have an understanding that there is supposed to be, and I think it’s been about a year and a half now we’ve been hearing about a review of the inclusive schooling funding formula.

So the deputy minister...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question here with regard to the funding for education authorities, particularly to the two authorities within Yellowknife who, I know, are very prudent in their financial management and have managed to accumulate a bit of a surplus to help them over the requirements for extra staff in September, a program that may need an extra bit of money to carry them through to the end of the school year and so on.

My concern is that over the last week to two weeks I have twice heard the Minister reference the surplus of education authorities, and I would like to know from...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to follow up on Mr. Bromley’s comments and the Minister’s response before I go into what I’ve got, I’m disappointed that at this point in time we don’t know whether or not we’re going to continue to fund the two pilots that we started in this current budget year. I guess I have to leave it at that. There’s no question there, but I guess I feel really strongly that if these were pilots, we should have known before… One month before the end of the budget year, we should have been looking at evaluating these pilots and determining whether or not it’s going to be ongoing...

Mr. Chair, I have a question with regards to income assistance programs. My recollection is that over the last year to a year and a half to two years, our income assistance requirements have only been going up. There is an increase of about $500,000 from 2013-14 to 2014-15 on this page. I guess I would like to know, from the department, if they are seeing any kind of a trend in the requirements under income assistance. Is this funding going to level off at some point? It has been consistently increasing for a number of years. Can I get some kind of information as to where the department thinks...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been talking a great deal about education in the last few weeks and months. This is Education Week and I would like to recognize and salute all the NWT educators among us who make a difference in people’s lives.

We – and I include myself, because teachers never stop being educators – are everywhere in our lives. Yes, educators are in our schools, teaching kindergarten to Grade 12, but they are also in our gyms, our fitness centres and our yoga institutes, at the NWT Literacy Council and their workers are community workers who are in every one of our communities...

Thanks to the deputy minister. I’m done. Thank you.

The increase is about $600,000, $550,000. In listening to the Minister, I didn’t quite get all the numbers, but I gather the largest amount is about $400,000 for the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat. Is that an increase to that secretariat or is that to set up that secretariat? Thank you.

I just have one other question in the section. It’s my understanding that, I think the Minister is well aware… I’ll back up. I think the Minister is well aware that I have an interest in student housing at the college and the lack of it. My understanding is that the college is doing a housing review at this point. Could the Minister confirm that and advise me where the review is at? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, thanks to the Minister for the explanation. I do have to say that I know that committee recommended that the program review office stay within the Executive. We didn’t feel that it should be transferred to the Department of Finance. I think there is a risk that it will lose its function of properly evaluating programs and services and that it will be used more as a tool from simply a financial standpoint. I think that’s a fairly large risk.

My second question has to do with the output, I guess, of this office. Certainly in the 16th Assembly, there were a number of programs that were...

Mr. Chair, I want to ask again, in the 2014-15 budget, is there money specifically earmarked for ERI initiatives? Thank you.