Wendy Bisaro

Thanks to the Minister, and I don’t disagree that we need to do something for our early childhood practitioners. They definitely are not paid what they’re worth, but I’m struggling to understand. The Minister didn’t really answer my question as to where this approach came from. I find it unlikely that the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative would have laid out this kind of an approach to increasing wages for early childhood practitioners.

My next question to the Minister has to do with how this program is going to work. I am struggling to understand just how this is going to roll out, so...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a motion. I move that this committee defer consideration of the Department of Human Resources at this time.

I inquired of the Minister of Education a short while ago whether or not his department will make any adjustments to the funding formula for daycares as a result of the implementation of junior kindergarten. The response from his office indicated no funding changes are coming. According to reports in the news media, the Minister has said that daycares will be provided with infrastructure money to change four-year-old spaces to spaces for babies or toddlers, but money for cribs and blankets doesn’t address the problem of bigger wage costs.

Until we have publicly funded early childhood care/early...

I’m not sure I quite understood the Minister’s answer. We have 150 people that we are trying to accommodate. I think that is what he told me. I appreciate confirmation to that if that is correct.

If there is someone who simply is not happy with the accommodation that has been offered and there have been negotiations back and forth and they simply cannot come to an agreement between the new department and the individual or the department where the individual is returning to work, I guess I should say, if that happens, is there an appeal mechanism for me as an employee? I don’t like what I’ve...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple questions here. I’d like to know from the department, at one point we had a great number of grievances and the department was diligently working their way through the grievances and trying to bring them down to a reasonable number. Between last year and this year, projected budget year, can I get some kind of an idea of whether the number of grievances we have had has gone up or down or has it stayed steady? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, what page are we on? I think I might have got ahead of myself.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a question here and I couldn’t find a reference, but some time ago I wrote myself a note and I put “client service centre versus regional service centre.” The two centres have been referenced, I don’t know if it was in the Minister’s opening remarks or elsewhere, but I’m struggling to understand what the difference is between a client service centre and a regional service centre. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. I’ll use an example, which may be a little exaggerated, but if I’m in Colville Lake and there is no regional centre in my community, what do I do then? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just am wondering, on the 2013-2014 numbers, how 18, 18, 18 becomes 19 at the bottom in the left-hand column.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Committee would like to deal with Tabled Document 22-17(5). We’d like to continue with the Department of Human Resources and, time permitting, Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations and the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you.