Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure I really understood what the Minister was saying. I believe we need to address bullying in our workplace and we need to use that word. I don’t think I heard any commitment from the Minister to try to go there. I also didn’t hear from the Minister that we have concrete plans in place.

I would like to know from the Minister if he would commit to reviewing what policies we do have, the Harassment Free Policy, if he would commit to finding out what MOUs exist and if he would look at our legislation. I think the only legislation that applies is the Occupational...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

When might that be done? When could we expect to see the results of that review? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. I’ve done some looking into what exists within the GNWT. I certainly didn’t find very much. I did find, as I mentioned, the Harassment Free and Respectful Workplace Policy, I think is the title, and I think there’s an MOU, perhaps, with one or the other of our unions. As far as I know, there is nothing in any of our legislation and nothing in any of our policies which specifically says bullying. Harassment, yes, but not bullying.

So, I’d like to know if harassment is referenced, what is there within either the Department of Human Resources or within the government that...

Unfortunately, Minister, that doesn’t give me any comfort at all. What I heard you say is that we’re going to require the same certification as other teachers, and what I am trying to say is that early childhood educators do not require the same certification as teachers. They may require a degree, but they require a degree in early childhood education, they don’t require a degree in teaching elementary or high school. They are different and I really am concerned that here we are at the end of February, and I think the department is expecting that in September we are going to have people that...

So there is nothing which Members can see that that has been finalized to date, or is there? If there is, can we get it? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Mrs. Groenewegen has mentioned, there’s a bit of a pink glow in the Chamber today and that’s because it is Pink Shirt Day. It’s Pink Shirt Day here and across Canada. For the third year in a row, NWT MLAs are acknowledging the importance of this initiative to combat bullying, and for the third year in a row we are not alone.

In the last two years, the Anti-Bullying Campaign has gathered momentum across North America and across the NWT. NWT students, educators and education authorities have developed and implemented strategies, awareness and resources to deal with the...

Mr. Chair, as Mr. Bromley stated, this is a huge section. I appreciate that you are allowing us to come back and ask different sets of questions, because there is every one of these three sections we could spend a good five minutes on.

It’s kind of hard for me to know where to start, but I think I’ll start with some questions about the junior kindergarten, and I’ll follow up where Mr. Bromley left off, to a certain extent.

I read the activity descriptions and I look at the early childhood development and learning division, and it states program and curriculum development for children from early...

Mr. Chair, thanks to Mr. Kalgutkar for that. My other question has to do with the program review office. This is being or has been transferred, will be transferred into the Department of Finance from the Executive where it now sits. I read the description of the program review office on page 5-20. It doesn’t really read the way that I thought the program review office was described to us in the 16th Assembly. It seems to be less a section or a division to find efficiencies in government and more one which is going to sort of assist departments with evaluation and accountability and so on. I...

Mr. Chairman, so I just thought I heard the deputy minister say this current budget year for these two projects. Could I get clarification on that? I was asking about ‘14-15. Is this $1.1 million coming out of ‘13-14 or ‘14-15? Thank you.