Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to suggest that the motion can be read in a different manner than what Mr. Menicoche has interpreted it as. It recommends an additional allocation in the fiscal year of $2 million; however, it does not say it has to be new money. The committee is simply suggesting that we need to put a larger focus on mental health and addictions priorities and on actions that address mental health and addictions. It doesn’t necessarily have to be new money. There are lots of things that the department wants to do, but if the department so chooses, they can take money from...

Thanks to the Minister. So, my usual question, I guess, is in terms of timing. When might we expect this revision of the list to be done? I’m hoping that maybe there would be some communication with Regular Members as to what the department has decided on, and as part of that, is there a willingness on the part of the department to look at including naturopathic doctors at some point and when might that be? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the Minister for that open response. I was asking because that’s where I kind of thought we were. I think the Standing Committee on Social Programs would be quite open to trying to get together and figure out what will work, because we have to do something.

My other question has to do with the increase in contract services on this page. It’s about $6 million, $5.5 million. Could I get an explanation as to what increases in contracts we’re talking about? Thank you.

Thanks to the deputy minister. The French language services plan that the deputy minister references, is that just for the Department of Health and Social Services or is she referencing a plan across the government?

Thanks to the Minister. I can appreciate that you can’t do everything. I would like to know where it’s at. In terms of a time frame, is it something that you’ll get to before the end of the 17th Assembly or not? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of questions here, but I’ll first ask a question following up on Mr. Dolynny’s question about the Anti-Poverty Strategy funding. The action plan for the Anti-Poverty Strategy hasn’t yet been finalized. That’s going to happen sometime in the next number of months and I certainly look forward to that, but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that I had been advised that once the action plan was done, in addition to the money that’s in this current budget, that there might be a supp coming forward to fund the actions in the action plan. So I’d like to...

That’s good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t really hear an answer to my question, so I’d like to ask the Minister if he, with all this information that’s been compiled between the department and the education authorities, would he commit to providing to me and to other Members a school-by-school indication of pupil-teacher ratio as it stands now in each school in the territory?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of questions here. There is a large increase in grants and contributions and a fairly large increase in fees and payments. Could I get an explanation of what those increases are for, from, to, et cetera?

Thanks to the Minister. I do want to move forward, as well, but I don’t want to move forward at the expense of some education authorities. I appreciate that the department is monitoring, but I did ask the Minister when this commitment will start. If an education authority goes over the 16 to 1 PTR in the very first year that their funding is reduced, is that when the commitment kicks in?

The other part of this is I would like to know from the Minister if this commitment is ongoing, so once we get beyond the implementation of junior kindergarten and something changes so an education authority...