Thank you. Member for Kam Lake. Short question.
A short question. Would the approval of this create room to pay for additional resident and business supports for people who are evacuated from the territory? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
No, Madam Chair, this is not new money to spend. This is the ability and the authority to borrow money to pay the bills that we already have. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Are there any further questions?
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 20232024, Department of Finance revised borrowing authorization, $120 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Do you agree that you have concluded consideration of Tabled Document 97419(2), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 20232024? Ms. Cleveland.
No, thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that committee defer further consideration of Tabled Document 97419(2), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 20232024, at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion?
Agreed.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried. Consideration of Tabled Document 97419(2) is deferred.
Carried
Thank you, committee. Thank you, Minister. Thank you, witnesses. Sergeantatarms, please escort the witnesses from the Chamber.
Committee, we've agreed to consider Committee Report 6119(2), Standing Committee on Social Development Report on the Review of Bill 81, An Act to Amend the Education Act, No. 2. I will go to the chair of Standing Committee on Social Development for any opening comments. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Standing Committee on Social Development has advocated for improvements to education in the Northwest Territories over the life of the Assembly. While Bill 81 represents just phase 1 of the department's proposed improvements to education, which focus on operational and administrative amendments, the committee, along with overwhelming public concurrence, was disappointed in the phased approach. The phased approach lacked a thorough engagement process in which to inform meaningful change to address the uneven and poor state of education in the territory.
The Minister did provide a commitment that phase 2 of the Education Act amendments will include robust engagement and result in substantive amendments to the act aimed at improving educational outcomes of Northwest Territories students.
While Bill 81 is very limited and technical in nature, because it proposes changes to education, the committee took on the task to review the bill very seriously. Through the engagement process, the committee received six written submissions and met with residents and stakeholders from Inuvik, Norman Wells, Deline, Colville Lake, and Yellowknife. The committee took the concerns received in the engagement process and moved amendments to the bill to address these issues. The committee received ministerial concurrence to amend Bill 81 with regards to student transportation, education oversight committee and parental consent, and student education program modifications.
Based on the breadth of grave concerns the committee heard from stakeholders in the engagement process, the committee provides recommendations to the government to inform phase 2 of the amendments to the Education Act expected in the 20th Assembly.
Recommendations for phase 2 amendments of the Education Act include improvements to the approach and engagement process, absenteeism, wraparound services, and support for students with disabilities.
The committee expresses gratitude to everyone who met in person with the committee and provided their thoughts in writing. The committee acknowledges the disparities in education outcomes in small communities and lived experience of small community residents. The committee acknowledges many stakeholders shared very personal and even shocking experiences as a result of gaps in the education system. The committee would also like to recognize this information was shared in an effort to address the desperate need for improvements to the education system in the Northwest Territories. Committee would like to thank all stakeholders for their contributions.
Madam Chair, individual Members may have additional comments at this time. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. I will now open the floor to general comments on the committee report. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have to say that this bill, and our taking it on the road, was probably one of the more impactful ones that I have had in the last while, or has struck me in the last while, was that just how deeply and passionate the people in the territory are about the education system and really where the state of it is when you look outside of Yellowknife. I didn't expect to hear the stories that I heard I guess, really. And I do want to like I my colleague said, express my thank you to those that shared with us. A lot of it, and you know yourself, Madam Chair, as being part of that committee, there were a lot of really tragic stories. You know, I never thought about the fact that somebody who was upgrading and then going off to an education in the south would become so demoralized upon not being able to keep up with their colleagues that they would then turn to selfharm. And I really wanted to thank the mother that shared that story with us. It was very painful. But it really impacted me in seeing the bigger picture of how these failures in our education system is impacting the youth in every way. Even the ones that have done what they're supposed to do and have made it through and have upgraded and have gone on only to find out that they don't meet the criteria and they don't have the same qualifications as the rest of Canada. And I can't imagine what that does to someone's psyche and their mental health when, you know, they've been this crowning jewel of their community and only to then come back and feel like a failure.
You know, I was really impressed upon me doing this was as we toured schools and such I had already mentioned the state of the school in Deline, that was really impactful. But I think the biggest thing was the disappointment from members of the public that this wasn't the be all/end all opening of the Education Act that was going to be, you know, the driver for the mandate item to improve educational outcomes.
I understand why it was done this way and that there were certain things that administratively needed to be done but, in retrospect, I think that it felt then very much very dismissive in a sense to community members that they were being told that they were yet going to have to wait even further.
When this Assembly first got in, it spoke a lot about education and about the children and the youth, and that seems to really have gone by the by. And I get that we've had, you know, crises after crises and environmental issues and pandemics and such, but it's not an excuse to not do things in the right manner. And so I'm glad that there was a good back and forth with the department. We heard a lot of concern around the transportation and that was not carried forward, and I appreciate that that was, you know, a compromise, and I think we worked well with the department in this regard on this bill. But I felt just the disappointment of the people in what this was.
And I guess just to not belabour that point any further, one piece that I think is really key that needs to be taken forward into the next Assembly is that the Indigenous governments that have their selfgovernment already figured out, their next plan is to take on their Education Acts. So as we're moving this legislation forward and we embark on phase 2, it really needs to be done in that collaborative manner so that we're not setting up a new system that then contradicts whatever the community of Deline wants to do for themselves or what the Tlicho may want to do with their Education Act. And I'm excited for that. I actually it was sort of the thing about it all that I was like, you know what, let's let the Indigenous people do this, let's let them take it on and take care of the children because it's not working the way it is right now.
So just some of my rambling thoughts on our bill. But I do want to also say thank you very much to the communities that welcomed us in. It really was a pretty fabulous trip, and they were very welcoming, and we had some amazing discussions with people there. So thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Are there any further comments on the committee report? Seeing none. Member for Kam Lake oh, Mr. Bonnetrouge.
Mahsi, Madam Chair. Yeah, I was on the committee that travelled with social development on this Education Act. Although it was specific to several items that would give some leverage to the department in accessing school records from the communities, we did hear, as my colleague from the MLA for the Great Slave spoke passionately about here, she pretty much captured everything that was out there. But there was other ones that I heard from the BeauDel, you know, education council members up there that they're saying well, all these changes we're looking at making on this first round, you know, how is that going to improve the education of the students? And I was really, you know, taken aback by that because that was that's been my, you know, concern since the start of the 19th Assembly when I took on education as a campaign issue from all the concerns I've been hearing from even my community, which is quite surprising. And then finding out a little bit here and there that, you know, even the attendance records were being fudged, you know, they were being overbloated compared to what was actually in the school. So there is you know, and the grade levels as mentioned before, that was very dismal. It's surprising that I'm just hearing hearing like oh, the grade 12 graduates, they only have grade 8 or less as an actual grade level. And I hope the Minister appreciates why I've been after, you know, what were the actual grade levels in our schools because it becomes important when you have to go out into the world and we don't have our students getting grade 12. And then, you know, I've been saying that before, too, even for the university that NWT is contemplating is that our people are not going to be walking those halls. You know, I really believe that there are, you know, very good educated students out there who we just need to push them a little bit more. We need to challenge, you know, challenge them at the community levels. We grew up; I think everybody everything was all right, you know. My aunts and my uncles, they were Dene. They spoke the language. They didn't have the education, but I turned out okay. That's because it was the fundamentals of the three Rs reading, writing, arithmetic. That's what I see is kind of lacking in the schools. We don't know what's really happening in the schools either because nobody is having meetings with the community. It was just specific to parents, they get little notes. There's no community meetings, you know, and nobody knows what's going on in the school.
I know some of the problems that I've been hearing from parents, you know I'm not against the Dene Immersion Program. I know that the Dene are really concerned that there will be a total loss of language. When I was a leader in 20002001 for my community, there was a group of people tasked with putting up a language wheel where it showed, you know, the fluent speakers and it goes out and out and that. It really showed that we were losing our language. And with the Dene Immersion Program, I realize it creates employment. That's what it was doing. It created employment. And when we went to school concerts it was just, you know, glorious to see that our students were singing in the Dene Zahtie language. But I'm wondering if there's a different way we could approach it because there's concern that our students weren't learning English or the alphabet in English until grade 4. That's what I was told, grade 4. They didn't know how to read the alphabet. They didn't know how to write the alphabet. That's what I was told. And that became a concern to me because I always said at graduation ceremonies, I always said what the elders I still remember what they said. You know, we want good education for our children so they can become doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers and such. That speaks about what we expect from the education system. And from what I see in the small communities, we're not even going to get there. We've lost it.
So everybody that's out there in the district education authorities or councils, the DDECs, the divisional educational councils, chiefs, mayors, Metis presidents, we all have to start talking about the education in the NWT and specifically in our small communities because we've lost like, in my community, we've lost a lot of really good southern teachers that were gungho about teaching our children. They had the drive but after social passing, all I've been hearing is, you know, out it's out there. Teachers are saying well, I don't need to teach them this because they're going to pass anyways. So that complacency is hurting us from the vision of what our elders had been saying, that message that I still preach at graduation ceremonies.
But education is a pretty big topic because everybody says you need the education to get a job. We know there's always other avenues but, you know, to our technical schools you can go to work on equipment and everything else that way, nursing, whatever. But as I've been saying, you know, if we know the student's not going to have grade 12 level when they graduate, at least we should be helping them so that they can pass a trades entrance exam. That's almost like a cop out still.
And we don't have enough teachers in our school systems in the small communities. We've got two, three, four grades for one teacher. And perhaps we don't have enough students. Now that comes another problem.
So everything that I'm saying here, you know, it really warrants almost like a royal commission on Indigenous education in the small communities. In the next Assembly, I really would encourage them to really consider that. We need to go to every community, not cop out and say oh, regional centre and fly them there. Go to every community so you can even see their living standards and what is happening in their community. You really have to understand what's going on here with education. And we need the education department to be a lead in a lot of areas for us as I've been, you know, jumping all over the department because they weren't doing their job I'm saying. Maybe they were doing their job but they just weren't doing it the right way or something. We weren't focused in the area. Because I don't know, I see education, like it could be having a major shift is what I'm kind of seeing. I thought I would mention that. Mahsi for listening.
Do any other Members have any comments on the committee report? Thank you. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I know that this one, it's phase 1 and phase 2, but phase 1 was an important part of this legislation. Phase 1 is the one that, you know, that included to work with the Indigenous government. And I still feel that this Minister missed the opportunity of working with the Indigenous government to modernize the Education Act. This was a step for us, for especially with the Indigenous government and this would have been a good start to the reconciliation. And they missed that. They missed that opportunity. And that is why a lot of Indigenous government, they were opposed with the phase 1. Phase 2. I mean, phase 2 is also important, it's good, but that's after the fact. It was the phase 1. For the first time, the Indigenous government would have been part of working on the education system for their people. But no, we were left out. So I still feel that they missed the opportunity because, you know, just like what my colleague said over there, Ron and Caitlin and Katrina, talking about the education system, you know, on the tour and a lot of people did say that, you know. And I don't mean to discredit anyone. I don't mean to discredit the Indigenous teachers, language teachers; they are doing their best. But we are lacking a lot of resources in small communities. And we even have some schools that are still teaching multi grade. I mean, that's that's not right because there lots of kids are falling through the crack. You know, they're not getting the proper education. When a teacher is focusing on grade 1 and 2, like, and 3, and only have one support sometimes, they don't have the support, so the teacher is teaching all grades in one class. Those kinds of things have to stop. And we don't even have access to speech and language pathologists in a lot of small communities.
This is one of the things that we're the department can come in, wait and fix if later. It's too later for many by then because you can't do nothing. There's that's where lots of a lot of young kids, we noticed that they quit because they can't function. They miss out on lots of things. So this is where I think that's why I said that, you know, this was phase 1 was the one that we could have made lot of the mistakes that were made in the past right through this in phase 1. Phase 2 is okay. That's after, like I said. But I think that it's just more program and more resources is needed in small communities so that our young people can catch up so we can have we all want a lot of our youth to be educated in two languages, you know, and we all want our kids to become doctors, lawyers, astronauts, all those high level professionals that in other regions take advantage of. We can't take advantage of any of those things because we're still lacking. And I know that today is the Orange Shirt Day, and I know that a lot of I heard lot of comment made before that education starts from the house, from our home. But how can it how can that be when a lot of these young these parents did not know how to parent and they just and it goes to the next generation, and that's why we have 98 percent of children in child welfare systems. So this is where I think we could have made all those the mistakes that were made from the beginning, we could have fixed it.
And I don't blame I don't blame any of those Indigenous government that wants to take over the education program because they don't want their next generation to go through what our past generation, us, we went through. We don't want that. And we want our kids to function at that level. And it's just yes, larger regional centre do have the advantage and we don't. And even us in Tlicho region, where just right next door we're still being denied a lot of programs and services and we have to come to Yellowknife to access those. Even for speech and language, some of those parents they have to come here. And for small communities in Sahtu, you know, like, they have to come here or Inuvik to access those programs. And it's just really, really frustrating, and this is where like, what I would like to see for the next government is that more programs and services should be going out to the small communities and start focusing on the little kids. We still have hope, we can still do it; it's just that we need more resources. And let's not focus too much on larger regional centre because we have the same rights as anybody else. Our kids have the same rights as anybody else. And this is very shameful for me even to talk about it, to say these things. It's really shameful. And it shouldn't be like that. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any further questions for the social development report? Member for Nunakput.
I just want to thank my colleagues for going out to the communities and hearing all the concerns that we do have and, like, with the social passing has to stop. We have to put more emphasis into our children and our youth that are coming up and giving them a chance to succeed in life instead of putting up roadblocks and barriers. I think that the social passing and with the new curriculum coming in, I really hope that we could really get in front of it and start working with the communities and all of the local community governments and the like, with us it's the Beaufort Delta Education Council. And, like, I do have communities in my riding that have one teacher, two teachers that, you know, it's tough on them, extra work, and a lot less students. But at the end of the day, you want to give all that student all the tools to succeed in life. I think what we have to really realize here that all the problems and issues we have right now is because of not being our children educated. And right now, from the youth, the kids from 30 down, are having a tough time. They're really having a tough time because of the drugs, the alcohol, that's all happening, and they're having there's no and the biggest part of that is because of the education, and they don't think they could do it. But once you apply yourself and put a hundred percent effort in what you're doing, anybody could do whatever they want. But just a matter of encouraging them. And I just wonder, yeah, for the next government and that going forward, I think we have to put more emphasis on like, everybody, like it's so easy for us to say oh yeah, our youth are our future. But there's nothing backing that up. We have to back it up. We have to make a difference now. And all the problems that we're having with the housing and all these problems that we're having in this Assembly with, you know, justice, health care, it's all going to start pulling back. It's not going to be so bad once everybody's educated. And like I said, I'm going to stop here but social passing has to stop in the communities and across our territory because it's just going to alleviate the pressure as us as legislators in this Assembly on the go forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Nunakput. I will now turn Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I also want to make a couple comments. We got to keep remembering that education is a treaty right. Based on the treaties that was made in 1900, and Treaty 8, my great great grandfather's the one that signed the treaty in Fort Resolution. And Treaty 8 Treaty 11 was made in 1921 up and down the valley. And when the treaty was made, it was made with the Crown. And the Government of Canada was supposed to uphold those treaties. That's why we got a Governor General, and here we have a Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. When we do an oath to office here, it says that we're supposed to recognize and respect the treaties that are made. And what's going on now is that the way the Government of Canada is managing how they're going to deal with Aboriginal people here in Canada are done so through land claims and selfgovernment agreements. And not everybody signed onto the agreements as well; there's still ongoing agreements that are being negotiated. But right now as it is, the Government of Canada has agreement with the Government of the Northwest Territories that was created in 1967. And a lot of the Aboriginal people still don't recognize this government as their government. It's still recognized as a territorial council, Territorial Act under Indian and Northern Affairs.
The thing is that what's happening now is that we have now that we got some settled claims, a lot of these governments are now are really frustrated because they want to enhance the education at the community level, build new schools I've been advocating to get a new school in Dettah. And the dates on those schools that I seen in some of the material I was reading before are saying that that school is probably 1987 or even '88. But that's not right. You know, it goes back to probably even earlier, to 1978, when they were trailers. And, again, you know, it's getting to the point now where the Indigenous governments are actually wanting to do a letter to the Governor General themselves and say hey look, we need a new school. We can't continue to go after the territorial government for a school because they're not delivering, and they're not honouring and respecting those treaties but yet 75 cents on the dollar is grants and contributions that comes from the Government of Canada.
So I think it's something that we really need to take a look at as a government, is that, you know, we got to start working start working together, start building relationships, and we need to start building trust. But a part of this committee, we got a letter from the N'dilo DEA expressing their issues and concerns. There's a lot of DEAs up and down the Valley but we all have to fall under the Education Act. But that Act also is competing with our treaties, and that needs to be recognized and because it's a our treaties are in the Canadian Constitution on section 35 (1) and (2). And the Territorial Council is you know, they've basically, in theory maybe we're agents of the Government of Canada. We're, in theory, meaning the Crown, we're doing the Crown work but we're not upholding those treaties.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's getting to the point now where and I mentioned earlier that the Indigenous governments are now are concluding their claims. Some are not there yet. But they're really frustrated because, you know, they want to go directly to Canada now and start getting that money that they give to the territorial government to be diverted to them so they could provide their own education, maybe create their own Education Act, etcetera.
But anyway, Madam Chair, I just want to make a note of this because I want to continue to emphasize that education is a treaty right. And I want to make sure that this government continues to respect that because we have an oath. It's in the Canadian Constitution. We can't change it; it's there. And going forward, we need to think about doing business different now. And that's why I'm sometimes I wonder now maybe we need to start having those discussions about how we're going to move forward and coexist down the line.
Whenever I sit here and I see committees come in front of this desk here and asking for all these monies for these departments, it's really frustrating because when I sit here and I look at it, no problem but yet whenever the communities want something, it's different. So I just want to just make a note of that because to me, again, I want to emphasize we do have a treaty. It's alive and well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Tu NedheWiilideh. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment create a stakeholder plan that prioritizes meaningful engagement and facetoface meetings with Indigenous governments, youths, students, community members, and elders. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to reemphasize how important this one is. I was really struck by how invested all the community members were that came about having a say in the curriculum and how things move forward and how the schools are operating within their communities. So I thought this was a great motion for us to put forward. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment draft aspirational legislation for its next iteration of the Education Act that takes a holistic, traumainformed, and culturally-responsive approach to education that is accountable to all NWT communities, its residents and, most of all, its youth. Thank you.
The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Great Slave.
Madam Chair, I think it would be very remiss if we didn't talk with this motion about the incidences that we have seen over the last while in some of our schools, which includes some pretty disturbing video footage that was shot in the community of Fort Simpson. I did not see anything in that video that showed a traumainformed or culturallyappropriate approach.
And giving in watching that video, it was very disturbing to see that there was comments being made, and in contact with the family afterwards, they told me that their child no longer wants to go to school and very much spoke to me about the legacy of the residential schools and how this had invoked for the family a lot of a history of trauma. I think this has been a conversation that us on social development and AOC as a whole has had throughout the entire time on the Assembly, was this traumainformed approach. As I deal with other departments that deal with marginalized people in the territory, I time and again see that this is not happening. A case in point was the income assistance letters that went out and slid under doors threatening everybody that their rent was going from $80 up to $1,600 because they hadn't filed income tax. So this government has a really long way to go in being traumainformed and actually carrying that out in their work instead of just speaking to it and paying lip service to it. So I think that this is a very important motion, and I hope that everybody will support it. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment work with education bodies and schools to promote school attendance by building on community strengths and parental involvement.
Madam Chair, if I can speak to this one briefly. When we were visiting communities, attendance was something that came up quite frequently. And what we were met with was a lot of people from a place of wanting to positively participate as a community and as a parent group in finding solutions along with the department and supporting one another in order to increase student attendance. And so I think this is one where there's a lot of desire to use creativity to find different ways to get students back into schools and keep them there. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Next time wait until after the motion is called, and then you can make your statement. No, I won't want make you repeat yourself.
The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment build a northernspecific model of coordinated wraparound services for NWT schools. Thank you.
Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee recommends the Department of Education, Culture and Employment:
Increase funding and expand professional development opportunities for staff to best support students with disabilities;
Expand the suite of programs and services available to students with disabilities in their home communities; and
Improve data collection as it relates to students with disabilities.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
