R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a big question. There are 10 different education bodies and 49 different schools in 33 different communities, so a lot of different steps have been taken. As the Member noted, school was closed in mid-March, and the decision to close it for the remainder of the school year was made, I believe, on about March 26th. The reason for that is because the authorities and myself felt that, if you waited every two weeks to see if we would reopen, we wouldn't be putting the effort into delivering distance learning, and so the decision was made to close the schools for the...

I'm not a statistician, but I'd think there would be a lot of effort expended to do that that would be better spent teaching languages. The Member wants to know every time someone becomes fluent. Well, hopefully, we're not going to be able to track that because it's going to be so many people. You go around to different communities, and they're doing different things. In certain places, they have early childhood where it's immersion. I don't think we're giving those children tests on a regular basis to determine, "Are you fluent, or are you not fluent?" It's not a simple black-and-white thing...

The Bureau of Statistics has information about the number of speakers. We don't have the information about which speakers have passed versus who has just recently acquired a language, but as I mentioned, work is under way to get better data, and hopefully, the Member will be pleased with what the future holds in terms of that.

I don't know if this is necessarily the time to be introducing new programming. The landscape has changed, and we went from in-person to distance learning in the matter of weeks. The focus right now is on preparing for distance learning, at least for the first semester. There is no plan to add new programs. However, the Member is right that we do need to grow our programming, and that's part of the transformation work, part of the strengthening of the foundation, ensuring that the administrative processes we have in place support the growth of programming. Maybe we take some of the...

No. This isn't the forum where those would be discovered. There won't be decisions made behind closed doors that someone has to ask me about. It's going to be a much more transparent process than that. What's happening right now is that there is a plan in place, and it's been refined. A lot of the work has been done, and I spoke about this, not in the last sitting necessarily but the first part of this sitting which we had back in February/March. I had a plan, and I was taking it to Cabinet so it could then be shared with the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight. I am just...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The COVID-19 global pandemic has had profound effects on people around the world, including residents across the Northwest Territories. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment has been working tirelessly to adapt its programs and services to help lighten the economic, social, and emotional weights of the pandemic, and I would like to provide an update to the public about those efforts.

We recognize the essential role that licensed early learning and childcare programs have for our youngest residents and their families. As a result, ECE has continued to flow...

That's part of the work that we'll be undertaking in the coming months. We need to come up with a facilities plan. There is clearly work that needs to be done at all the locations, and then, there's work that can be done in the communities as well in terms of the community learning centres and the different types of access we can have there. We are undertaking that work, creating a facilities plan to let us know exactly what we need. I'm anxious to get that money, too, but it's hard to go to the feds and say, "We know we need something, but we don't have a plan for you just yet." They don't...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All the activities planned to be completed in this Assembly are still on track to be completed in this Assembly. Like everything else, the last two months has been exclusively focused on COVID-19. We are about two months behind in a lot of ways, which has pushed some of the things I was hoping to have done this summer back a few months. Other than that, things are on track. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

No, there is not right now. The government has a lot of artwork. There are a lot of government buildings, and they have lots of things on the walls. That means there is artwork that could be worth virtually nothing, and there could be some large pieces, like the Member has referenced, that could be worth quite a bit. There was an inventory taken by ITI, I believe, about 10 years ago, that looked at all of this, but nothing has been done since. I think the reason for that is because this massive artwork, it would cost more than all of the work combined is worth to inventory it, so I think that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are trying to work with the other Minister and the Member to get some answers for her questions here. When it comes to public artwork, it is the responsibility for the department to care for it, to maintain it, to store it, and they can always reach out to the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre for advice. That is where the experts are. That is the situation right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.