Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services, and I wanted to ask some questions about the Mental Health Act. We have on our Order Paper the first reading of a bill that’s coming up. We’ve also been hearing from the Minister for quite some time that the Mental Health Act is under revision. It seems to be an extremely long time coming. Certainly, the standing committee has been looking at it for over a year. I’d like to ask the Minister, first of all, to give us an update on where the development of a new Mental Health Act is at this point.

I heard the Minister say that it’s grants for early childhood learning and child care workers. I see that written in text on the bottom of the page. Who is getting these grants? Are they going to daycare operators? Is this the money that is going to early childhood educators as a top-up in their wages? Is this the scholarship grants? I would like to know what the extra $400,000 is being used for.

Thanks to the Minister. I would think with 4,500 or 5,000 employees, whatever we have, times 12 days times an average salary per day, it’s going to be a pretty huge number. I would urge the Minister to look at that number and consider that maybe we ought to be considering the cost of absenteeism and working to bring that down somehow.

There is a report that I have encountered which says that up to 25 percent of mental disability costs directly incurred by an employer are preventable. I talked a lot in my statement about mental health and the need for us to make it easier for people to talk...

Maybe I need it to be written down. I don’t understand. I don’t know how to try again.

I understand that education authorities are funded by pupils. In the 2014-15 year they were funded by pupils and then they were reduced $400,000. Are you telling me that they’re going to funded to the max by pupils in ‘15-16 and again be reduced by $400,000? Except for enrollment, is it going to be an equal amount of funding in ‘14-15 for the education authorities as it will be in ‘15-16? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Human Resources. I want follow up on my statement when I talked about absenteeism and mental health in the workplace and making our workplace better.

I mentioned a statistic from the 2013 Public Service Annual Report and I’d like to first off ask the Minister, the statistic I mentioned was 12.3 days absence per employee in the year 2013. So, I’d like to know from the Minister, if he can tell me, what accounts for the very high incidence of days absent from work? Are there any statistics that he can give us, to me, to the House...

Thanks to the deputy minister. I appreciate that things are not always equal between one jurisdiction and the other, but I guess I would have thought that if we are putting on a course, we are certifying people and we are certifying them against the Saskatchewan standard, we would know how that measures up in other places. I would think that would be something that we should know as a department.

I want to change course here and ask a question about junior kindergarten funding. I have struggled to get… I don’t know if I’m asking the question incorrectly or whatever, but I’m trying to find out...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve heard a lot in the House about GNWT jobs and vacancies. But something not often spoken about that is a huge drain on our resources, both human and financial, is absenteeism.

According to the NWT 2013 Public Service Annual Report, the work absence rate for the GNWT public service was 12.3 days per employee. This is a decrease from 2012, when it was 13.2 days, and 2011, when it was 14.7 days. I guess it’s a good thing that that number is going down, but this statistic means that every NWT employee was absent from work one day every month of the year. That’s a lot of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to follow through on the early childhood but I’ll leave that, I think. No, I have to ask the question again. The certificate that we are currently issuing through Aurora College for early childhood educators, how portable is that to other jurisdictions within Canada?

In the absence of that information, I’m not sure if this question will also be able to be answered. It’s my understanding that the program delivered by Aurora College doesn’t meet national standards for sure. I don’t know if it meets the standards in any other Canadian jurisdiction besides the NWT. If somebody is educated and receives an early childhood diploma or certificate, whatever it is that we produce through Aurora College, how portable is that certificate or that diploma when they go to another jurisdiction, Alberta or Ontario or Quebec for instance? How does our program stack up...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m going to continue on with some questions about daycare from where Mr. Dolynny left off. With regard to the review, it’s going to be completed fairly soon, I gather. The end of the month, I think I heard the DM say. I asked some questions of the Minister, I can’t remember, within the last couple of weeks, in the House about consultation and what consultation was undertaken for this review. I asked the Minister if operators had been consulted, and I think he advised yes. Then I asked who those operators were. Can I get, from the Minister or the department, an indication...