Wendy Bisaro

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

---Carried

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Minister that anything we do for our children is an investment, but I believe again that he is misplaced in putting the investment in junior kindergarten as opposed to investing in our children from birth to three years of age.

Knowing that the research says that the science proves that the earlier we invest, the better the results later on, I would like to ask the Minister if he would consider, in the development of this action plan, putting off implementing junior kindergarten for at least five years until we can see the effects of early childhood...

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...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’d like to deal with Tabled Document 1-17(5). I would like to just mention that Tabled Document 4-17(5), NWT Electoral Boundaries Commission 2013 Final Report will be left on the Order Paper. We won’t deal with it today as we have a motion pending that was deferred yesterday. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll try to be brief, but I did say in my opening comments that I support making the decision of a commission binding, but there have been a couple of extremely valuable points raised within the last few minutes. I do think that this suggestion deserves some careful thought. We are tired after four and a half hours, which I agree with whoever said that it was an extremely valuable time, was an excellent debate. Just the thought that one of the reasons we don’t have debates like this is because we pit one side against the other and our procedures and processes don’t really...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, as well, want to start out by thanking the members of the commission, Justice Smallwood, Mr. Furlong and Mr. McCrea. I think they were charged with a very difficult mandate, and as members of the Electoral Boundaries Commission, I think they did do a good job.

We’ve heard from Mr. Bromley. I’m sure we will hear lots from other Members in the House on the three recommendations that are before us. I have to ask, ask myself, and I have to ask it out loud: What are we trying to achieve? The answer, in my view, is that we’re trying to achieve equity and parity of voting...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for the opportunity to speak to this motion. It’s unfortunate that I won’t have the opportunity to speak to a motion for 18, and I want to say that I believe there are Members in this House who did want to speak to the motion for 18 and that there are some Members that do support that option.

I want to just repeat many of the points that Mr. Dolynny just made, but I think they’re valid and they bear repeating. First of all, and I said this in my remarks earlier, 19 seats gives us the largest number of overrepresented ridings of all three options. We still have one...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We wish to deal with Tabled Document 4-17(5), final report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission.