Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s hard to be short when I get an answer that doesn’t reference my question. The Premier says that all the schools are over-funded. Our legislation says our PTR is 16 to 1. I want to say that the only schools which are meeting that 16 to 1 PTR are in Yellowknife. I would like to know whether or not the Premier intends to enforce or reduce dollars so that we are 16 to 1. Is he going to enforce a ratio of 16 to 1 in every school across the territory? We now have some that are funded at less than 5 to 1. Thank you.

Thanks to the Premier for clarifying that. It doesn’t make me happy, however. We are now targeting regional centres’ education authorities and Yellowknife education authorities in a second year for a program which presumably is fully funded in this first year. We have 23 communities now ongoing for Junior Kindergarten. We had reductions from education authorities to fund the first year and the reduction in the second year was supposed to fund the second year, from what I understand.

The other concern that I have is that this funding is only coming from authorities who have schools greater than...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2106, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 115-17(5) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two members of Yellowknife Education District No. 1, if they are still up there behind me, Mr. Al Cook and Ms. Heather Clarke. There were here earlier. Welcome to the Assembly. I’d also like to recognize two Pages who are here today from Range Lake North School, but they live in the riding of Frame Lake, Brian Johnston and Elijah Lange.

Thanks to Mr. Aumond. So there is no revenue anywhere. Like, the funding that we got from the federal government for devolution, was any of that for these capital assets? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yellowknife has a great legacy of mining. The city is here because of mining, particularly gold mines. With the two mines in our city limits now closed, we’ve been gifted with one huge liability at the Giant Mine site, and after the mine’s abandonment by Royal Oak Mines, the federal government took over responsibility for cleanup and remediation of that site. Their proposed remediation plan didn’t really address the problem. Not surprising, when the planners were thousands of miles away and the threat not in their backyard. But it is in our backyard and today I want to...

Thanks to Mr. Aumond for the explanation. It’s very clear, but again, it confuses me. Why do we not transfer what we’re going to be spending? Why not transfer the other devolution money, the $3.7 million from our devolution money, in the year in which it’s going to be spent? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few comments and then I’ll have some questions when we get to detail as well.

My concerns are very similar to those of my colleagues. We have two very large expenditures in this operations supp. Both of them were unexpected and were unplanned, and that happens, particularly with the forest fire expenditures, fire suppression expenditures, the special warrants that had to come through. Absolutely, that needed to be done and I’m glad that the government acted on those.

I do have very large concerns with advancing the payments on the Inuvik-Tuk highway, the $20...

Thanks Mr. Speaker. I didn’t really hear an answer there so I’ll just give up on that one as well.

This is a new process, as the Minister has said, and any time there’s a new process I am a firm believer in doing an evaluation of it. So, I’d like to know if the Minister has plans at this point, even though it’s early in the process, does he have plans to do an evaluation of how our role as regulator and our role as accepting input on issues is working, and when does he expect that that evaluation would occur? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that. So, the Minister has delegated his authority as regulator and yet he still references himself as regulator. So I’m struggling to understand, and I think the public is probably wanting to know, how does the Minister call himself a regulator and yet delegate the authority to someone within his department well within the oil and gas department section of his department.

So, how does he reconcile that he is the regulator but he has delegated that authority as well? Thank you.