Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions of the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
I spoke yesterday in my Member’s statement about the difficulties encountered by regional boards in providing housing for their teachers or ensuring that their teachers have adequate housing. They have sent a letter to the Minister. It describes the need for available, adequate and affordable housing, and it talks about housing shortages, substandard and unsafe living conditions in housing and exorbitant rents.
I’d like to know if the Minister has any plans to tackle the housing problems these education boards encounter year after year.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, this is one of the key areas we are focusing on as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment: to find suitable and affordable housing units for staff, especially for teachers coming to the North. We certainly want to welcome them with open arms. One way of doing that is working with the various organizations in the community, most specifically the LHOs, the NWT Housing Corporation at the community level and the Department of Human Resources.
We are developing a strategy. I myself, the chairs of the five regional boards, including Yellowknife, and the superintendents are putting a package together for us to look at options of moving forward on a long-term basis. I believe we are making good progress for short-term and long-term goals. Mahsi.
I was very glad to hear the Minister finally mention the education boards. He mentioned a lot of different organizations and finally mentioned the boards that he is consulting with as well. That’s a good thing.
The Minister has received a letter from the regional boards, and there are a number of recommendations in that letter for the Minister. On a similar vein, I’d like to know what action the Minister is planning to take to address these suggested options, apart from meeting with these board chairs.
Mr. Speaker, we did meet with the Deh Cho superintendent, who is coordinating for the superintendents, and also with the chairs of the respective regions’ education boards. We met a couple of weeks ago. They proposed three or four options for us to consider, but we wanted to deal with the immediate issue at hand: the new recruits and the returning teachers coming to the North, especially in the isolated communities that may not have housing units.
We’re going to work closely with the Housing Corporation to identify vacant units that can be made available to the teaching staff. That is one area where we have found possible solutions. The superintendent also gave us the option of moving forward with the long-term plans. We are making progress in that area and working closely with the education boards and with the department as well. Mahsi.
I appreciate the information from the Minister that the short-term plan is going ahead. I would like to confirm with the Minister that the short-term plan is basically referencing August and September of 2008. Could he confirm that for me?
Mr. Speaker, we are wrapping up our process of recruiting teachers and principals for the North. We’re focussing on their arrival, whether it be August or September, possibly mostly in August, when they arrive before school starts. That’s a short-term solution we are identifying. The long-term solution will be in the next few years. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s good to hear, and I hope we can find a solution for housing in every community that currently has a problem. One of the options suggested by the boards in their letter was to allow regional boards to have the same authority as the local Yellowknife board and that they be given the authority to acquire and dispose of real property.
I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not this is something the department will or can consider and when we might expect to see a change in the legislation before this House.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This option was just given to us recently, so we need to sit down as a department and go over the options. Certainly, it will be presented once we move forward. There’s still ongoing discussion within my department. It hasn’t moved forward because this will be a long-term solution. Once we’ve made a decision, we’ll certainly come back to the committee, possibly the Social Programs Committee, that deals with our ECE department. At that point in time we’ll certainly be sharing that information with the committee. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.
