Wendy Bisaro

I appreciate the Minister’s commitment. I’d like to ask the Minister, I’m well aware that one of the boards in Yellowknife, Yellowknife Education District No. 1, has a very involved Safe Schools Policy. It could be used as a template for all the rest of the schools within the territory. I’d like to ask the Minister if the department would consider taking the YK No. 1 Safe Schools Policy and sending it to all the schools within the territory and encouraging them to develop their own policy from this template.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple of questions here. The Minister mentioned that some of the increase in this budget is because we’ve added new facilities to our total numbers of facilities, and that the O and M operational costs of these facilities are increasing the bottom line for the budget. I wondered if the Minister could advise which buildings he’s referencing when he says that we’ve added buildings to our stable of facilities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. In February of this year I asked some questions of the Minister with regard to a safe schools policy for all of the schools within the NWT and the Minister responded. Thank you very much to the Minister. I did get a letter which pretty much told me that all schools have an emergency response plan in place. But I was not referencing an emergency response plan, which is like a lockdown if we have a shooter in the school, or a bomb threat or so on. I’m referencing a safe schools policy which...

Thanks to the Minister. Three hundred sounds like a lot, but I can appreciate with some…

---Interjection

I have to disagree with the Minister. I mean, what I’m hearing the Minister say is that we have students with special skills and we have students who are very proficient in French, and we are penalizing them. We’re not allowing them to get an extra course. For some of these students it’s the one credit that they need to get them into the particular course that they need and we’re saying, no, I’m sorry, but you can’t do that. Go back and take the whole course and then maybe you’ll get the credit.

I really feel that the Minister is suggesting that students who already have these skills shouldn’t...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. I highlighted in my statement an unfair situation, I believe, which exists within the Department of Education relative to students being able to challenge a French second language exam.

I’d like to initially ask the Minister what the rationale is for this particular policy change. Our curriculum is allied with that of Alberta, and Alberta made the change and changed it back to the original. We’ve maintained this change in policy, and as I’ve said, I think it’s unfair, and I’d like to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 3-17(3), Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2012-2013, and would like to report progress and that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Okay. We will move on. Before we move on I will allow the Minister to respond to general comments. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Are there any further general comments? Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next on my list I have Mr. Dolynny.