Thank you Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my Member’s statement, the responsibility of the Department of Education is to create a school environment in which all students feel safe and included so that they are able to reach their potential and realize their goals. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister: when the department was developing the external working group which was responsible for drafting policy for safe and caring schools, why didn’t the department include outside groups with direct access to LGBTQ youths, such as Arctic FOXY or It Gets Better Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In terms of the external working group, some members were selected. Going forward, seeing as all the safe school plans still have to be developed and submitted by October 1st, we will go look into those. We are also creating a safe and caring schools manual. In that manual, there is a section that explicitly focuses on the LGBTQ education, history, and concerns, addressing such topics as sexual identity, gender bullying, suicide, social and emotional learning and diversity. I can get to the departments and ensure that the two organizations that have been identified, we will reach out to them and see if there is any specific areas that they would like to see incorporated into the manual seeing as they are being developed. Obviously, we want to make sure that we have the best manuals, education, curriculum out there when we are providing safe and caring schools. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his reply and his commitment. Much appreciated. Alberta, Manitoba, B.C., and Ontario have amended their education acts to make LGBTQ students safer. Can the Minister explain why the NWT didn’t take advantage of the most recent research to add similar provisions to the NWT regulations?
Yes. As the Member does know, the Safe and Caring Schools Act is new. It is something that was brought forth in the 17th Assembly, and I had the honour to sign off on it earlier in this term. We also have a territorial school code of conduct within this act. The territorial school code of conduct states that it is the responsibility and the right of the school communities to promote equity and fair treatment of one’s self and others. It also states that the school community is to refrain from discriminating against others on the basis of race, colour, ancestry, nationality, ethnic origin, place of origin, religion, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family status, family affiliation, political belief, political association, or social condition. We wanted to put everything in there in these regulations so that we can protect as many people as we can and provide the best and the safest and most caring schools possible. That was all done through the consultations.
Thank you again to the Minister for his reply. Mr. Speaker, 85 per cent of teachers nationally support LGBTQ-inclusive education but say that they are held back by a lack of direction and resources to apply this subject. There is a wealth of resources available created by publishers, school divisions, and teachers’ organizations. Will the Minister commit to making some of this excellent material available to NWT teachers, and if yes, how will it be made available?
Currently, we have an NWT health curriculum already in place, as well as we are going to be doing work under the education, renewal, and innovation. Within the current NWT health curriculum, we are addressing outcomes of skills for healthy relationships as it is mandated, and one of the components of this program is a unit on challenging homophobia. It is actually linked to the website. Also, it is in the K to 9 curriculum, as well as we have other initiatives that are committed to ensuring that some of this work in the curriculum will address some of the concerns that the Member has brought up. We will also look at a scan of the resources, what other jurisdictions are doing that are a little bit further ahead. As I said, this is a new act, and we want to make it right, and we want to make it the best act possible. We will look at the resources that are out there and see how we can bring those into the NWT schools as well.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you Mr. Speaker. Thank you again to the Minister for his reply. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, gay-straight alliances help create awareness of gender issues in the school and provide an important support network. There are examples at Mackenzie Mountain School in Norman Wells and at St. Pat’s here in Yellowknife. Can the Minister comment on how the Department of Education can work to encourage and support the development of GSAs and other supports for inclusiveness in NWT schools? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
With the gay-straight alliances in the two communities that the Member has brought up, we have to do a school visit with those two schools. I will make it a point that when I do go to those schools for a school visit, that we will sit down with the group and see what we can do as a territorial initiative and have them on board to initiate that and be territory-wide leaders, not just in the communities but for the whole Northwest Territories. I look forward to working with them on that. I will get the department to look into that, and once we get a chance, we will do a school visit and look at those groups. I am very excited to see what they are doing.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
