Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. It’s the end of the school year. I’m just wondering if I could ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment how his work on the ministerial directive for francophone education is coming along and whether he’s had a chance to provide that to the Commission scolaire. Mahsi, Monsieur le President.
Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned, I did get questions on this earlier in the week. We’re just waiting for the reports to be written up by the independent review, and in that report, we are going to get some recommendations. We’ll sit down with our staff, decide what we’re going to be doing in terms of moving forward with the ministerial directive, and then be presenting that to both the Commission scolaire and all the interested parties involved in Hay River and Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Minister’s response. Does he have a date in mind when he will be able to share this directive or the report or whatever with the Commission scolaire?
I don’t have a specific date in mind. However, after I meet with the departments, review that report, look at the recommendations, we will come up with a decision and we will present, we will send letters out to all the stakeholders that are involved that will be affected by the ministerial directives. As soon as we get the report and look at the recommendations that were provided to us, we will get letters out to the stakeholders.
I appreciate the response from the Minister. Can he tell us though, whether the information that he’s going to provide to the Commission scolaire is going to be a draft, and if he’s looking for further input, or is this a final decision that he’s going to table with the Commission scolaire?
As this has been an ongoing concern, both in Hay River and Yellowknife, a lot of consultation went in to developing this report. When we look at the recommendation and come up with our decision, it will be a final decision moving forward and hopefully be ready for the next academic school year.
I’m just trying to understand this, the process that the Minister has discussed here. There’s going to be a report, and then a decision. Is the report going to be shared with the Commission scolaire separately? Or are these two documents going to come with the report and then a decision? If the Minister could shed some light on how this process is going to work, it would certainly help this Member understand where we’re going with the process.
In terms of the report, when it was brought forth in this House in a previous sitting, there was discussions about reviewing the ministerial directive, which we did. We got an independent review to go out and speak with all the stakeholders on how they wanted to proceed and move forward. From that consultation, we developed a report which was an independent report. We will take those recommendations from what we heard from the stakeholders and we will make the final decision, moving forward from the academic school year. We will talk to the department about sharing that report. Obviously, it’s going to be, I wouldn’t say discrepancies, I don’t want to say that, but because it’s a different situation in Hay River than it is here in Yellowknife, the ministerial directive will reflect all of the Northwest Territories.
