Wendy Bisaro

Why are we seeing the outright denial of any assistance to cover the extra pension costs? Don’t all NWT teachers deserve the same standard of pension benefits? Apparently not, according to the Minister.

Yellowknife school boards are being unfairly targeted by Education, Culture and Employment through funding cuts and denials of applications for extraordinary funding. Just because they have taxation capability is no reason not to treat them equitably with all other NWT school authorities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move we report progress.

---Carried

My next question is similar to Mr. Dolynny’s in looking at the cash amount, but I guess if you can’t tell me the percentage, you probably can’t tell me the amount of dollars. I’m looking to know whether or not the dollar amount that we are forgiving and/or that we are losing through defaulted loans is going up or down over time.

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.

I didn’t hear much reference to how this is maintaining the quality or the level of education that we currently have when the boards are losing money.

I’d like to also ask the Minister: It hasn’t been stated outright, but certainly in recent actions and statements by both the department and the Minister, there’s been an indication that there’s a new policy which is being instituted by the GNWT for boards. That seems to be, from what I’m gathering and what I’m hearing, is use your surpluses to fund your budget shortfalls. You’ve got surpluses and we want you to use them up, we’re not giving you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister for Education, Culture and Employment and I’d like to begin by asking the Minister one or two of the questions which I mentioned in my statement, which have been provided to me by constituents and are questions which I would love to get an answer for as well.

The first one from a constituent: How can the Minister add one whole cohort of students – and by that I’m referencing junior kindergarten – and reduce funding to the boards and at the same time still maintain that the boards are able – the Minister is saying that the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Auditor General’s observations can be summarized as follows:

In 54 percent of plan of care agreements, compliance with conditions was not properly monitored.

Annual reviews were not performed in 81 percent of the files.

Develop and implement a comprehensive action plan

The committee is alarmed by the number of deficiencies identified by the Auditor General and the degree of inaction displayed by the department following the 2010 report. During the public review, departmental witnesses were unable to explain to the committee’s satisfaction why so little has changed...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past year I’ve been very vocal about my concerns with aspects of the Education Renewal and Innovation Project as proposed by ECE. I’ve questioned the Minister with varying degrees of success. In some cases I conducted my own research and then questioned the Minister. It has been a frustrating experience for both me and my constituents because good information has been hard to come by.

Today I will give voice to the words of numerous constituents who have contacted me and other MLAs, expressing their concerns about reduced funding to the Yellowknife school boards...