Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education. I’d like to ask him a couple of questions with regard to his Response to Written Question 6-17(5), with regard to the explanation of funding and reallocation of funding for junior kindergarten.

In 2014-15, $1.8 million will be reallocated from education authorities, and I take it from the Minister’s response that this is from all authorities, even from those four authorities who will not get junior kindergarten in 2014-15.

I would like to ask the Minister if he would please confirm that my understanding is correct...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, have a number of comments, and answers can come later on. I may ask further questions when we get to detail, but I just have some observations and some comments that I’d like make comparing last year to this year and so on.

I’d like to comment, first of all, about the Workforce Planning Strategy. I’m really glad that we have that and that it’s still being worked on. One of the things that we noticed, particularly in the last budget or the budget before that, was the number of retirees. I shouldn’t say number of retirees. The number of employees we have who are...

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I think I heard the Minister say we have those numbers. All I have in the written response is the current ratio is 13 to 1 and the legislated ratio is 16 to 1. I would like to know what we are moving to, and if that’s what the Minister said that he will get for us, then I very much look forward to that information, if he could confirm, please. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. I’m not so worried about the engagement. I know that the superintendents and the board chairs and the boards have been involved all along and that they have known about this initiative. My question is: When were they advised that their funding was going to be reduced for the ‘14-15 budget year? If the Minister doesn’t have that information, that’s fine, I can appreciate that, but it’s my understanding that it wasn’t very long ago; that they were not advised of the funding at the time the project was put forward.

The Minister mentioned that the superintendents had...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for those numbers. The Minister said in his response that our education authorities are run by professional administrators, and I totally agree with the Minister, and I, too, have confidence in those authorities and in the trustees that run the boards, but my understanding is that it’s been fairly late notice for these reductions to the superintendents and to the boards and gives them little time to adjust.

I would like to ask the Minister, for my information, when were the education authorities advised of these reductions, these changes in pupil...

I didn’t really hear an answer there so I will try again. My understanding is that, for instance, the two school districts in Yellowknife, Yellowknife Education District No. 1 and Yellowknife Catholic Schools will lose funding to provide junior kindergarten in 29 communities and they will not get kindergarten in the ’14-15 year.

My question to the Minister is: Does he consider it fair that the larger centres, four communities, will give up some funding with no return in ’14-15?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday a banner was unfurled at Yellowknife Education District No. 1, a banner celebrating 2014 as the anniversary of 75 years of Educating for Life. Seventy-five years ago, on January 30, 1939, the original little log cabin schoolhouse now on Franklin Avenue in downtown YK was opened as the first school in Yellowknife. Eighteen students aged from six to 15 years attended classes under the guidance of Mr. Davies, their temporary teacher. A month later Ms. Mildred Hall arrived, the first permanent teacher for Yellowknife.

Life in Yellowknife was very basic in those...

Mr. Speaker, it just does not compute for me. We are comparing apples and oranges and I cannot understand how it’s okay for us to record the revenues… It’s an accounting entry, I think the Minister said. So we are recording an accounting entry and it’s okay for revenues but we won’t do an accounting entry for expenses. So on the one hand we’re taking advantage and on the other hand the government is also taking advantage and saying we’re not going to do it in ‘14-15, we’ll do it in ‘15-16.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he can tell me, since 5 percent is presumably what the budget was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions to the Minister of Finance. I want to follow up on my statement and also follow up from my colleagues’ questions earlier.

I would like to say that I appreciate the government’s willingness to do the right thing and put 25 percent of our new resource revenues into the Heritage Fund, but I am unable to reconcile the Minister’s words with the numbers that are in our budget. As I stated in my statement, the request was to put that money in -14-15, not in ‘15-16.

Mr. Bromley has asked this already, but I don’t believe I heard an answer, so I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unlike my colleagues, I will not be putting aside my statement today, and I want to talk about the Heritage Fund. I want to speak to the report that I tabled yesterday from the Action Canada Fellows, titled “A Question of Future Prosperity, Developing a Heritage Fund in the Northwest Territories.” That report had six recommendations and I’d like to comment briefly on each one of them.

The first one is to establish clear fund objectives and allocate more than 5 percent of annual resource royalties to the Heritage Fund. We’ve heard from the Finance Minister earlier today...