Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That leads me right into a question with regard to Sport North who has indicated over the years that they’re not being adequately funded to manage the trials and transfer, whatever, the whole dealing with athletes in and around Arctic Winter Games; regional trials, territorial trials and then taking the kids to the games. So I would like to ask the Minister has he not ever heard that Sport North has difficulties in funding those trials? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, I appreciate that the department is willing to do this in house and that the superintendents and chairs are providing information, but if I were chair of a board, it would certainly be to my advantage to pad my numbers and to indicate that special needs students who aren’t severe may be severe and that’s why I’m suggesting that there needs to be an impartial person doing this gathering. So to the Minister, I’m not suggesting a study. Again, would he commit to having an impartial, outsider gather this data? Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. My point is not so much that enrolments are going down and it’s not so much that we necessarily have to increase funding. I don’t think that’s what perhaps the districts are asking for, but there is an unequal distribution of very severely high needs, very severely special needs students within districts and the allocation of students is not even across the board. My point is, then, I think the point of YK1 is that the funding needs to be reallocated and redistributed so that severely impacted special needs students, the higher number in districts get more funding. I...
Or is this perhaps a trend all NWT education authorities are experiencing? The only way to know for sure, Mr. Speaker, is to undertake an independent count of the severe needs students in NWT schools. It is highly unlikely there will be an even distribution amongst all schools, but that’s what the current funding formula assumes.
Boards with a higher incidence of severely disabled students must be funded to a higher level, Mr. Speaker. ECE needs to reconsider how education authorities are funded under the Inclusive Schooling Policy. Thank you.
Thanks for the updated number, but that’s still one-third more units required than what we have space for. I’m sure that’s not what we’re building. I appreciate that things can’t be done totally, but from a corporation perspective is there any reason why we have so many people on the waiting list? Is it just that, do all of these people qualify? I presume they do. Do we have that many people requiring housing in Yellowknife? Even out of the total units in the Territory, it’s like some 2,300 units and 110 of them or so are here in Yellowknife. That’s still a pretty huge number. Is there any...
Just one last comment. I guess, then, that the Minister would say that this approach, this process is successful and he expects that it will be further successful in this coming year. Is that correct?
Thanks to the Minister for that. That’s really encouraging. That’s an area that requires some activity and it’s great to see that the communities are taking an interest and are taking over the responsibility for that kind of housing. My concern is what there is going to be ongoing. If this is going to be one-time funding and there’s no funding in this next 2010-2011 budget for housing for staff, how does the Minister expect that this initiative will be kept alive and that we will be able to involve other communities beyond the 16 that are currently involved?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions here. I noted when we discussed the business plan in the fall that there was a deletion of the funding that was intended for housing for staff. I understand that it’s been moved to another department. I wonder if I can get confirmation of that. Does Housing have any idea of what this other department is going to do with that funding?
Thank you. I appreciate that the Minister has made a commitment to gather facts, but I think the problem is that he’s gathering facts based from a very subjective viewpoint. Each individual education authority, I believe, is being asked to provide this information and the point of YK1 is that we need to have an independent study, there needs to be an impartial gathering of the number of high needs students in each jurisdiction. So I guess with the suggestion from YK1 to do an impartial gathering of data to get at the actual facts, will the Minister consider doing that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education. When we reviewed the Department of Education budget I asked a number of questions of the Minister and his officials with regard to inclusive schooling and how we fund inclusive schooling to our education authorities and I have a few more questions for him following up on my Member’s statement.
The Minister was presented with evidence from Yellowknife Education District No. 1 about a year ago, of a high number of severe special needs students within that district. I’d like to ask the Minister what his response...