Wendy Bisaro

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...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. In accordance with Rule 6(2), I move that we continue to sit beyond the hour of daily adjournment to consider consideration of Tabled Document 87-17(5).

Thank you to the Minister. Could I get an explanation of what preparing the roadbed means, because it’s pretty rough in some spots right now?

Thanks. I’m sorry, I didn’t get all of that, but was there any indication of any work being done on the roadbed itself?

Thank you, Madam Chair. We wish to deal with that tabled document. I don’t know the number, but Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2014-2015.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. It’s nice to know that, if I hear the Minister correctly, he’s not going to claw back surpluses, but by reducing funding, that in effect requires them to use their surpluses to fill in the shortfalls.

So I’d like to know from the Minister, in Yellowknife, obviously the situation is different, the Minister is well aware, if he’s forcing the boards in Yellowknife to use up their surpluses, a portion of that is taxpayers’ money. So does he feel that that’s fair in that my taxpayer dollars are being forced to fill in a shortfall that the GNWT is...

Thanks to the Minister for the information. I think I and the public will wait with bated breath to see this new information and see how it’s presumably going to assist the boards. I still have difficulty believing when you take money away that it’s going to make things better.

The second question from a constituent: How can the current level or quality of education be maintained with the slashing of funding to the school boards? Thank you.