Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Next for general comments I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. At the outset, I want to thank the Legislative Assembly for giving me the opportunity on this committee to travel and to look into this particular bill and this issue. It was certainly an issue that provided us with a lot of input and a created a lot of thinking amongst committee, both individual and us as a group. I want to thank the Ledge staff for the work that they did setting up our travel, setting up our meetings and so on, and looking after us as we travelled. And I would like to thank all the presenters that we heard from. They were many. I particularly want to thank the students. It’s been mentioned before, but it was novel that we heard from students, and our public hearings there were a little bit less formal, a bit like pulling teeth sometimes to get the kids started, but once they got going we got some really interesting perspectives from the students. It was a new process and it was an experiment. I think that’s been mentioned already. But I think it’s something that certainly the various committees should think about doing again. It certainly gave us a different perspective on the issue.
I don’t think it’s any secret, and certainly I expressed right from the time that the amendments were brought forward that I don’t feel… I did feel and I still feel that any legislation that was brought forward – and I said this at the time – to address bullying should be more comprehensive than what we have before us, and that was my major disappointment. I think Mr. Dolynny suggested that, as well, that there’s not much in these amendments to address bullying. It’s been said that it’s a societal issue. I absolutely agree. It is an issue that goes well beyond schools. We can’t deal with bullying and/or cyber-bullying within the four walls or the six or eight walls of the school, however many they have these days. We can’t deal with bullying within the walls of the school. You know, then the kids leave and, basically, how do you monitor that once they’ve left the school? That’s my concern with this legislation, with these amendments, that it doesn’t deal with the whole issue, it doesn’t deal with the community and the issue of bullying within the community. That’s my concern there.
However, I am glad that we have got something here. As much as I wish it were a lot larger and more comprehensive, I’m glad that we do have something. I think, though, and I’m going to say this more than once, but these amendments, this bill should be considered as no more than a start to address bullying and to try to deal with bullying in our society.
A big focus of the bill is establishing a territorial code of conduct and a safe schools policy, both of which I agree with, but both of which were not available when we went and did our consultation on the bill. They’re still not available even at this point. And we heard from quite a few people who said, well, I can’t really comment on the bill because I haven’t seen the code of conduct. It’s referenced a number of times in the amendments, but I have no idea, basically, what it contains and what it means. I haven’t seen a safe schools policy so I don’t really know what that is, so it’s very difficult for me to comment on the bill. We heard that from a number of people. Probably more so from trustees of boards and, you know, sort of people at a higher level, at a superintendent or a board level, but it certainly was mentioned a number of times.
I have this question for the Minister. At some point these two documents are going to be developed and my question to the Minister is: How will the stakeholders be involved in the development of these two documents? There was a recommendation in our report from the committee that says – if I can find it – “the code of conduct in the safe schools guidelines and regulations should be provided to Standing Committee on Social Programs and other education stakeholders for review and feedback in advance of their enactment.” I feel very strongly that this is a very core piece of these amendments that are going to be used to address bullying through discipline and so on. We’ve consulted on the act. We now need to consult on the code of conduct and on the safe schools policy. It needs to be a broad, across-the-board consultation.
I’ve also said before that this legislation cannot be considered the end point. It’s not going to work if we just put these amendments in place and don’t do anything else. We’ve heard from quite a few people in the presentations that these amendments must be backed up by a number of other things, and one of them is to address root causes of bullying. Bullying is a way of somebody acting out and they are acting out for a reason and we need to treat the reason. That’s what I’m calling root causes. If we don’t provide programs or we don’t provide staff within the school who can deal with the root causes of the bullying, disciplining is not going to be the answer and it’s not going to make it go away.
Mr. Dolynny mentioned the public awareness and education campaign that’s referenced in the motion that was passed by this side of the House. That needs to be put in place as well. It needs to be part and parcel of these amendments to the Education Act.
There needs to be increased support either for the boards and/or schools, and when I say increased support, I’m talking about financial support so they can hire more staff and human support. They need more teachers in the school or counsellors within the school, either one or both, in order to deal with bullying. Teachers have extremely full days already and we’re now requiring that they take a portion of their day whenever bullying occurs to deal with it. That means they are then drawn away from whatever they’re doing in their classroom or whatever they are doing at that point in time in school.
So we can’t expect this to be lumped on top of teachers’ duties already and say here you go, here’s something else to do. We heard that, I think fairly loudly, from a number of teachers.
The other thing that I think is absolutely required, and this, again, is referenced in the recommendations from the committee, is we need broader anti-bullying legislation. As I said, this is a start, but we need to, as a government… It needs to be a separate bill because it has to work across our society, but there needs to be broader legislation which deals with bullying in the workplace, deals with bullying in the community, any place other than the schools, which isn’t now covered.
I think that’s about it, Madam Chair. I just want to reiterate again, as I said before, I think this is a first step and I appreciate the fact that this first step is being taken. I have to put my faith in the department and the government that they see the other things that are necessary to support these particular amendments, and I have to put my faith in the department and the government that they will take the necessary steps to make sure that these amendments work, and they don’t just sit isolated and not do the job that is intended. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. General comments. Next I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. First off, I just want to say that I was very honoured to be on this tour with committee, and the hard work that the Social Programs committee put forth and the staff that travelled with us, as well, to these communities. They did a really great job, as well as the department staff who came on this tour with us. So it was a lot of hard work and I listened to a lot of community members, educators, as well as youth, which was very unique and I was very glad to hear the students speaking up on such legislation.
I’d like to thank Mr. Dolynny, Mr. Yakeleya and Ms. Bisaro for bringing forward their motions to support federal cyber-bullying as well as getting this legislation to the point now and the hard work that’s gone into it. I was very honoured and pleased to have that as our first real bill as committee to take on the road and have such a positive outcome. It was tough, listening to some of the stories. It did open up some personal stories from some of the residents and students. It is great that now, as legislators, we can do something to affect the outcome or even detour bullying happening in the communities and schools, and having this in the schools is a good first step. However, taking it bigger into the workforce and into society and how we can make that step work for us and for the residents of the Northwest Territories is our next step after this one.
What we did here was the cyber-bullying… I thought I was up to date on a lot of things that were happening in the cyber world, but some of these youth brought to our attention some websites that are just anonymous and it was just unreal what we heard from some of these students and what was going on in the communities, but that also kind of filtered out into the hallways and playgrounds of the schools.
We heard a lot of great ideas and one thing that was taken into account was lack of counsellors in some of the schools and that does need to be addressed when we put this legislation through. I like the idea that it’s unique in the sense that each authority will work on developing their own safe school policies and when we do put our territorial code of conduct together, it is one that will allow some flexibility with the schools but also be there strong in the sense that we prevent bullying, Madam Chair.
I just want to say thanks to the committee. It was a long process. There was a lot of discussion behind doors leading up to the motion, after the motion, right to the end, and we did our report and brought it back into the House. I thank the Minister and his staff for all the work they’ve done as well.
Not much more to say, Madam Chair. We did introduce the report into the House. We read it last week. I just want to thank committee for all their hard work. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Any further general comments? I have no one else on my list. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do want to say thanks to the students in Yellowknife and Norman Wells, and the Diamond Jenness students. I didn’t go to the one in Hay River, but I understand that they had some good discussions. It’s the first time that we’ve taken this piece of legislation to the ones that we are mostly gearing this to that affects them, the students, and to the students for being brave enough to allow us into their schools and speak to us. I haven’t seen this ever in my life growing up and going to school in Inuvik. I never saw legislators come into our school at Samuel Hearne High and talk to us. This is pretty cool. Going into the schools, Madam Chair, I realized how old I am. Sometimes I think we are still in high school. It brings a lot of memories back to us, getting together with friends.
I want to say thank you to the committee and to the students for this opportunity, and certainly the parents for sending us notes or talking to us when we’re in the communities. We certainly had that in Norman Wells. They thought that was right on that we were going into the school to get feedback and talk to the kids, even though they were shy, but they certainly told us. That’s something that is bothering society.
My colleague Daryl Dolynny says it’s a society issue, something such as this word we call “bullying” that’s happening. I think there was a different name for it when we grew up in our time.
Our parents or grandparents usually got a good old willow out and straightened us out pretty fast. We didn’t really have time to hurt other kids. We had to work because our lifestyle was different. We had to either haul wood or pack water up the hill or feed dogs or clean the house. We had a lot of work to do and look after little brothers and sisters. We had a lot of things to do. The school of hard knocks was pretty enforced and implemented. So we had some things we had to pay attention to or otherwise mom and dad would come down on us on how we should behave as brothers and sisters or even within the schools.
I certainly want to say to Mr. Minister that we have to give hope to those children and parents. We need to support teachers who are going to be in this environment mostly. I’m not too sure what the graduate teachers that are coming out of university to expect this, the life in the classroom. I’m not too sure if they’re trained for that or if they know about that, or how much they know about the culture and psychological issues of addictions and impacts of the grading process and all these wonderful things, and they’re aspiring to be a good teacher on top of that. They have to deal with that. We have to really help the teachers when they come into this environment. We’re putting this legislation in force so that little Johnny can come to school and not be so concerned about something that is happening to him, like being pushed around. We have to really help the parents. It has happened even in our own homes. It’s not out there. The legislation is about us, about legislators and how the students spoke to us about this, because they’re carried on in life.
I look forward to looking at one day erasing this word, when we put the word “respect” back in there. We need to erase that from our vocabulary and put the word “respect” and “goodness,” have a strong teaching in a learning environment, give some leeway and flexibility. Like I said, when we were young, there were nine of us in my family and mom ruled. If you did something wrong, like I said, the willow came out. But you know what, Madam Chair? I never did that again. It was good. That’s what we need. I know it’s a different lifestyle today. I may sound rough, but it certainly saves a lot of headaches. My mom didn’t sit me down and say, well, quiet time, how did you feel then? No, it was wham, wham. That’s it. We’ll talk about this later when you think about what you’ve done. That’s counselling. The counselling was done by what she thought was good for us. We need to think that again, because we are helping the students. We are helping by it’s not okay to do this to other students or other people. It’s not okay to be this kind of person. You’re going to have a hard life when you grow up. That’s really hard, especially when it comes close to your own home. That is very difficult.
I like this legislation. I think that it still needs to be fleshed out and there are some really good, dynamite teachers working in our system. Sometimes we just like, come on guys. I think they went to university to become a good teacher. I’m not too sure if they went to university to become rich. There are lots of entrepreneurialships they can get into. They have good minds, so they have a really honourable profession and career and they believe that. They went to university to get their degree so that they can pass on something. Someone inspired them to be a teacher. And you know what? You can become a good teacher and you can also make good money. That’s the payoff, the discipline. This legislation is a bigger picture. Like someone said, it’s a societal issue. We’re just focusing on the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We need to really help the students who are willing to help us, and they are.
This legislation is good legislation. I do hope that, with your staff, you do look at it very, very seriously and look at it as to one day maybe there will be a territorial code. I always thought about this and had some good discussions with my significant other on a territorial code, even for something that is as radical as a dress code for our students that brings pride and you don’t have to worry about expensive brands of clothes or whatever. Just like us. We come in here; we have a code. Why not have that in the schools? That will save a lot of parents a lot of money to not have to buy expensive runners or jeans or pants, and have the schools in our communities celebrate that in our regions and in our schools. It works wonders when we are together as a team. That may be helping out in some of the incentives to this thing here about bullying. I don’t know, but I’m willing to do anything.
I would like to say, once again, thank you to the school here, Sir John Franklin, Diamond Jenness School in Hay River and the Mackenzie Mountain School in Norman Wells for allowing us, as legislators, to come in and listen to them on this legislation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next for general comments I have Mr. Bouchard.
Madam Chair, I would like to thank the Minister for bringing forward the amendments and obviously the department for all their hard work on this endeavour. I also would like to thank the standing committee, who had an opportunity to come to Hay River. I know they took extra special effort to make sure they got to Hay River and I appreciate that. I think the students in Hay River appreciated giving them their two cents as well as the general public.
Most of my colleagues expressed some of the issues and concerns that came out of what I saw in Hay River, was that the changes and the amendments towards bullying is just the beginning, that bullying is not just in the schools for students and general public, bullying is throughout the general public and out there. These are the beginning steps. I think we had support. Definitely when they came to Hay River they had support, but they indicated that this is just the beginning. These students are seeing bullying out in the community as well as the general public sees bullying out in the general community, so they wanted to see it go to another level somewhere down the road.
The other area was stress and we had a lot of educators that were in Hay River at the general meeting. They had indicated that, yes, this was something that they knew needed to be implemented, but the difficulty is how it was going to be implemented. There are no additional dollars currently being implemented for it and they’re under the gun. The educators, especially that were giving feedback in Hay River, said we’re stressed to the limits of our capacity now for energy, for finances, so they were wondering who is going to implement all of these regulations and how the anti-bullying is going to be implemented in the schools.
I know that Diamond Jenness spoke of their system that was in place right now. They indicated that they have a procedure, they have a process, but if these amendments were implemented, what impact did that have on what they were going to have to do in the future. I mean, that’s just some feedback that I see in Hay River. I thought I’d pass on the words, and like I said, some of the former Members that have spoken, especially some of the committee members who are up to speed on other regions, but I think a lot of the same issues were expressed. Again, I’d like to thank them for coming to the committee, because I think they did give lots of feedback and interaction with the community.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Any further general comments. Does the committee agree that there are no further general comments? Clause by clause, review the bill?
Agreed.
Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Madam Chair. I’d like to thank the Members for their hindsight of all the discussion that’s been taking place, even the three communities that we’ve talked about and even beyond that. Even thanking the students that have been actively engaged. It does take courage for these students to stand up and speak their mind, so I’d like to thank them for that as well.
I totally agree with the Members when they say this is the first step, an NWT safe schools plan. We also need partnerships, building on our success, the program that is being delivered. I agree with all those, and the code of conduct that is in play. It has been raised that it’s a societal issue. It is a society issue, bullying. In my role as the Education Minister, I’m responsible for the schools. Members indicated that this is the first step. We will do what we can with the school boards, DEAs and DECs to make this a very successful project in their schools.
We’re fully aware of the societal issue, so I will be working closely with the Justice department. They do work closely with federal legislation, as well, on the cyber-bullying and other legislation that is out there. This is an area that we will continue to push further to deal with the societal issue.
We’ve heard a few recommendations in areas such as mandatory counselling, restorative justice or a sentencing circle. Just some of the key areas that have been highlighted, and those are the discussions that we will be having with the DEAs and DECs, along with the NWTTA, and several of the interdepartmental discussions that we’ll be having.
Another area that, again, we talked about is involving stakeholders. We have done that in January 2013. TCSA and all DECs and DEAs have been involved. We formed a group at that time. NWTTA is part of that, Justice, Health and Social Services, MACA, NWT Human Rights Commission. That has been established. Just recently, in May 2013, we introduced amendments to the Education Act and also completed the territorial safe schools action plan. This is the hard work of the members, and also all the DEAs and DECs. All the partners that I’ve identified, I’d like to thank them for that as well.
The education awareness, it is an area that will be a prime focus, especially for the students. We want to utilize their expertise. The students will be developing videos, the media, education awareness to showcase to the community, to their schools and to the regions that they cannot accept bullying anymore. It’s not allowed in their schools, in their communities in the Northwest Territories. So those students will be innovative in crafting up those videos.
Mr. Chair, again, I agree with the Members about providing support for teachers so they can be prepared to deal with these bullying issues. We will be providing resources, training for these teachers and other professions so they can be prepared to deal with that. One of the areas is elders in school. Member Yakeleya referred to having respect put back into school again. So this is an area where we think elders can provide a lot of respect, so that’s what we initiated and it’s in schools right now.
I agree; we need to help the students. Mr. Chair, those are some of the key areas that the Members have identified and we definitely will be moving forward on this with the school boards and all the partners identified. We will keep Members up to speed as we move forward on the progression plans. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. With that, are we prepared to go clause by clause?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Clause 1.
---Clauses 1 through 11 inclusive approved
Bill as a whole?
Agreed.
Does committee agree that Bill 12 is ready for third reading as amended?
---Bill 12 as amended approved for third reading
Bill 12 is now ready for third reading. Does committee agree that we have concluded consideration of Committee Report 8-17(4), Report on the Review of Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Education Act?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. That concludes consideration of Committee Report 8-17(4). I would like to thank the Minister today and thank the witnesses for joining us here this evening. Thank you.
Does committee wish to begin review of Bill 22?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. With that, we’ll go to the Board of Management representative here to introduce it, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the Board of Management of the Legislative Assembly, I am pleased to present Bill 22, Territorial Emblems and Honours Act. This bill will establish an Order of the Northwest Territories to honour current and former residents of the Northwest Territories for outstanding service and achievements.
The bill also formally recognizes the official emblems of the Northwest Territories. Those include the armorial bearings, the shield of arms, the flag, the tartan, the mountain aven, the gyrfalcon, the Arctic grayling, the tamarack, the mineral emblem, which is gold, and the gemstone emblem, which is diamond.
The Flag Act and Floral Emblem Act are repealed, as their provisions are included in Bill 22.
Mr. Chair, I welcome any questions and comments Members may have.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Bouchard, do you have any witnesses you’d like to bring into the House?
Pardon?
Do you have any witnesses? Committee agree? Please escort the witnesses into the House.
Mr. Bouchard, if you would like to introduce your witnesses to the Chamber, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have Mr. Ian Rennie, legislative drafter, to my right; and to my left, Ms. Collette Langlois, Acting Clerk of the Legislative Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Rennie, Ms. Langlois, welcome to the House. General comments, Bill 22. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments are brief. I just want to say that I’m very pleased to see that this bill has reached this stage, and I would like to give credit to a constituent of Frame Lake, Mr. Jeff Corradetti, whose idea it was to push this forward. He pushed me, I pushed the Board of Management, and here we are. I’m really pleased that we have this bill here and that we will be putting in place an NWT award. I’ve forgotten the term, an Order of the NWT. Thank you very much, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro, for that pushy comment. Any other general comments? Is committee prepared to go clause by clause?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Bill 22, Territorial Emblems and Honours Act, Clause 1.
---Clause 1 through 33 inclusive approved
Committee, the bill as a whole.
Agreed.
Thank you. Does the committee agree that Bill 22 is ready for third reading?
---Bill 22 as a whole approved for third reading
Thank you, committee. Bill 22 is now ready for third reading. I’d like to thank Mr. Bouchard and our witnesses here for this evening. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber.
Is committee agreed to proceed with Bill 26?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. With that, we’ll go with the Board of Management representative here, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the Board of Management of the Legislative Assembly, I am pleased to present Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act. This bill amends the act to modify the allowance and expense entitlements of Members of the Legislative Assembly. The main changes are:
a new option for out of town Members to move their families to Yellowknife and still receive a capital accommodation allowance if they keep their home in their constituency;
it will no longer be assumed that Ministers live in Yellowknife;
clarifying the travel benefit that was intended to allow out of town Members to go home or bring someone in every second weekend during long sittings or meeting periods.
There are a number of housekeeping amendments in addition to these changes. I welcome any questions and comments Members may have
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Blake, do you have any witnesses you’d like to bring into the House?
Yes, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Mr. Blake, if you would be kind enough to introduce your witnesses to the Chamber this evening.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right, I have Ms. Kelly McLaughlin, director of the legislation division; and Ms. Colette Langlois, Acting Clerk of the Legislative Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Ms. Langlois and Ms. McLaughlin, welcome to the Chamber this evening. With this, we are on Bill 26 and we are going to open it up to general comments. General comments, Bill 26. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for clarification, Mr. Blake and the Board of Management, I just want to ask for the definition of home. There are some people who have homes in their communities. Some are leasing it; some are renting it. Some don’t have homes. Some, of course, have their own homes. Is there just a definition for myself?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the definition, I’d like to ask Ms. Kelly McLaughlin to answer that.
