Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I originally asked what this $1.2 million was for and did it include any work on the roadbed which, to me, seems like it needs a little bit of work done. Apart from chipseal, is there any plan to do any kind of grading and/or upgrading of the roadbed itself?

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a question under highways with regard to the Ingraham Trail realignment, a question in terms of where that project is at. I think the description of this project talks about lighting needing to be done and some what I consider reasonably minor bits and pieces that were unable to be done before the snow fell in the fall. I haven’t driven the road often, but I’ve driven it once and it suggests to me that it still needs a fair bit of work on the roadbed, not just on lighting and other bits and pieces to be added. So I’d like to know what this almost $1.2 million is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table a group of e-mails and letters from constituents concerning funding for Yellowknife school boards.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister, I think. I guess I would like to ask the Minister if he could provide some kind of analysis of the numbers of what the costs were prior to going to the big online ads and what we’re now incurring in terms of cost.

The Minister mentioned that there was reason for the changes, that we weren’t reaching a certain number of people. What kind of analysis was done by the department before they made the change to put job-specific ads in there? Who did they speak to? What kind of consultation or analysis was done? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that response. I know this is why we went to the one big ad, having people access jobs online and so on. I’m pleased that there’s been a recognition that obviously some jobs need to be advertised specifically.

The Minister mentioned that there’s been no increased cost to have what I’m seeing as twice the amount of ads that we had before, so I’m finding that very difficult to understand.

Can he explain to me how we have gone from one ad and now we have one ad and sometimes six others? How is that not an increase in our advertising costs? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some months ago we had discussions in this House about changes in the way GNWT jobs were advertised. As of October 1, 2013, the Department of Human Resources stopped putting individual job ads or listings in print media publications. Instead, they opted for a half-page or larger ad promoting the GNWT as an employer. The substance of the ad told people to go online, go to the HR website and look there for available jobs in our public service. This change was touted as an improvement in how we advertise for GNWT jobs, a way to reach most job seekers and so on. But...

Thanks to the Minister. If I understand this correctly, as of October 1st the cost for our ads went down because we were placing fewer ads. So from a year ago, so I guess from the 1st of April of 2013 to the 1st of October of 2013, we had a cost for ads. After October 1st our cost went down. So now, if I understand the Minister correctly, he’s telling me we’ve increased the number of ads, so that presumably has increased our cost, but we haven’t gone over the cost that we incurred as of April 1st of 2013. Is that right?

So, we reduced our cost in October; now we’ve cranked it back up, but we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Human Resources. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement. On October 1st of 2013, some eight months ago, we had a grand change in the way that we advertise for GNWT jobs. We weren’t going to advertise specific jobs any more, we were going to have generic ads, people had to have an e-mail address and they could apply online, and so on and so on. It was a grand improvement, we were told.

I’d like to know from the Minister, if it was such a great improvement, why the change that we’re now seeing in the newspapers in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will try to make it short, but I want to say to the Minister, I am not saying don’t implement junior kindergarten. To my colleagues, I am not saying that junior kindergarten should not go to small communities. I am saying we have communities where we have a program that is viable, that is successful and why are we forcing another junior kindergarten into those communities where we already have Aboriginal Head Start where it is active and viable and would be happy to take on more four-year-olds? Thank you.

I am very glad that the Minister knows those programs exist, and I hope he knows how valuable they are. I’d like to ask the Minister whether he knows how many four-year-olds live in each community where junior kindergarten will start in September of 2014.

Does the department know how many spaces will be needed in those 29 communities where junior kindergarten will be started? Has there been any analysis of the number of four-years-olds that exist in each community, and have they considered using the Aboriginal Head Start programs to offer junior kindergarten instead of starting a brand new...