Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up today on Mr. Bromley’s statement from Monday and express my concerns with the response from the Giant Mine Remediation Team, their response to the recommendations in the environmental assessment report from the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board about the Giant Mine Remediation Project.

It’s been almost four months since the Mackenzie Valley Review Board released its final report on the old gold mine’s remediation. I’m on record that I was pleased with the report’s recommendations, recommendations which directed the federal government...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the mover and the seconder of the motion for bringing it forward. This is a motion which I can fully support. I’ve spoken to the issue of alcohol in my own community and in all NWT communities many times. It’s an issue which, unfortunately, is going to take very many years before it will ever go away. I suspect it won’t ever go away fully.

It’s been spoken to I think by a couple of the Members already, but alcohol is involved in, obviously, the majority of incidents that the RCMP and/or the municipal enforcement officers deal with. It takes up a huge...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, one of the ones that have been rejected that I’ve referenced several times is an independent oversight. If we have to accept a non-independent oversight body, the Oversight Working Group has been working on an environmental agreement. It’s been worked on for many years. I’d like to ask the Minister when will the oversight group get back to the table and finalize this environmental agreement. Thank you.

To the Minister, yes, things take time, but I don’t think it should take five years for an environmental assessment. Goodness knows when it took that long for the pipeline, people were screaming that it was far too long.

The Minister quoted from a letter from 2012, I believe he was referencing the Oversight Working Group at that point, and I feel strongly we need an independent oversight group, which apparently has been rejected, or which I know has been rejected. So the Oversight Working Group, from my understanding, has not met since September of 2012, shortly after the letter I think the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s unfortunate that the Minister feels we have to disagree on something which would go towards assuaging the concerns of residents, particularly here in Yellowknife.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he can tell me, one of the recommendations which was rejected referenced an oversight of the project, and there’s no recognition from the response from the team of environmental agreements that have been worked on. There is no recognition that oversight is a very large concern for residents.

Can the Minister tell me, again, to this particular one, why is oversight of the...

I understand he’s the responsible Minister; I accept that, but he’s also the Minister responsible for the environment in the NWT. He should be, in my mind, looking after the best interests of the residents of the NWT.

I’d like to know if the Minister can advise me, and advise the House and the general public, how he can be responsible for the cleanup at the mine on behalf of NWT residents, and at the same time, he is responsible for the regulation of the project, which in this case is rejecting the recommendations.

Mr. Speaker, it concerns me that the project team speaks as if the decision is done. The team itself responds to the public as if their decision is final. This quote appears on AANDC’s website Frequently Asked Questions: “The answers are in and it’s time to move forward with a solid long-term plan.” For me that solid long-term plan must include an independent oversight of the project. It would help build public confidence if people from this community have further input into this project, rather than just the project team itself.

In closing, I want to quote one of the questions from the AANDC...

Thanks to the Minister. At the risk of being contrary, I would like to say to the Minister that there is also an article that talks about Ontario’s kindergarten and that any benefits from junior kindergarten and kindergarten are lost by grade 3 or 4 and everybody is back to being on the same level, so I don’t think junior kindergarten is the panacea he’s suggesting.

We have a couple of junior kindergarten pilots right now. From what I understand, at least one of them, and I suspect all of them, are in a classroom combined with kindergarten, so you have junior kindergarten students in the same...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize some Pages. I didn’t get an opportunity yesterday to recognize Anne Thomas. I don’t think she’s working here today, but there are a number of Pages from Frame Lake. Anne is one of them. Today I believe we have working here for us Jeff Harbin and Aaisha Hashi, and I’d like to compliment them on the work that they’ve been doing for us for the last, what, three weeks, I guess.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Education Renewal and Innovation Initiative is a huge undertaking and an admirable action on the part of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. I appreciate the work that they have undertaken, that the ERI team at the department is doing. The work and the resulting renewal are necessary. There are changing trends in education and we see poor results from our current approach to NWT education, particularly in the Alberta achievement test scores and statistics around graduation rates for our students.

The Minister tabled the Education Renewal Initiative...