Wendy Bisaro

Thanks, Madam Chair. I have similar concerns to my colleague Mr. Dolynny. I also wondered about why we needed the increase, and I appreciate the answer. I do have questions around the amounts, similar to Mr. Dolynny.

We’ve talked about a default rate, I think defaulting on loans rate, and we’ve talked about a remission rate. My question is not so much the dollar amount but a trend.

Has the percentage of remission and defaulting on loans gone up or gone down over the last number of years? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The department provides funding to eight district education authorities in the NWT according to a predetermined formula. Elementary and secondary school contributions are provided to education authorities based on government priorities and education needs. This funding framework plays a pivotal role in directing and supporting education councils to achieve education objectives. School contributions are calculated based on enrolment and to cover annual operating and maintenance costs.

Provide a...

Thanks to the Minister for the explanation. Generally, policy is developed internally. Why is it that we need to go to an RFP and hire a contractor to develop this part of the policy? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. The Minister and I have to respectfully agree to disagree. He is forcing the boards to make one of two bad options. They either use their contingency to fund the shortfall or they have to cut staff and increase their class sizes and reduce the quality of education.

The boards use this contingency money to fund extra staff, so they may get a special needs student who needs an assistant. They may get an extra 20 students in September that they need to find a staff person for.

I would like to know from the Minister, without a surplus, if my board has no surplus, in such a...

The Minister mentions an action plan. I know that that has been out there for quite some time. We have been waiting for that. It was originally scheduled for January and I know committee suggested that it be pushed back. Another question would be: When are we going to see that action plan?

The letter indicates that some of these initiatives will be funded from existing budgets but that others will require funding to be put in place. I need a little bit further elaboration from the Minister.

Will there be new funding for these initiatives, or will he continue with the current funding from within...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On behalf of the residents of Frame Lake, I too would like to thank Mr. Blake for his service. It has been great service and we appreciate that. I would also like to welcome the incoming commander, Mr. Smith. I have some Pages as well. Frame Lake is extremely well represented with Pages in the Assembly this week. Today I would like to welcome three Pages from Frame Lake: Sebastian Ransom, Isaac Macpherson and Dakota Earle. Thanks to those three in particular for your service, but thanks to all the Pages for the work they do for us. Thanks, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I voiced the concern of Yellowknife residents who have expressed their views to their MLAs about the implementation of Junior Kindergarten. Today I want to delve deeper into the dollars and cents aspects of their concerns.

The Education Renewal and Innovation Project is an ambitious one. It’s looking at a renewal or restructuring of our whole NWT education system. To date, the Minister and the department have announced, or is it decreed, that Junior Kindergarten will start in September 2014 in 29, or 22 now of our 33 communities, but with no new money. A very...

Thanks to the Minister. My last question is a general question with regard to this particular process, and I think we all know that developing a bill requires a great deal of time and effort on the part of both Regular Members, the Minister’s office and staff. It’s quite a process to put legislation in place and to go through the whole process of providing it to committee, committee does the review, it then comes here. There is a great deal of time and effort involved on many people’s parts, and it seems to me that there might be a better way to do this without having to make a change to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. That’s great. Can I get a sense of whether or not…and this is not so much relative to the students coming back but… Well, I guess it is, because if more students are coming back then we are remissing more money.

I’m looking for a trend. Can you give me any indication of over, say, the last five or 10 years whether or not this number has been going up or whether it has stayed steady or if it has gone down? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We would like to deal with Bill 24 today.