R.J. Simpson

Just like all the teachers and support assistants are still working, so are all the counsellors. Every school counsellor in the territory is still working, and they have continued their relationships with students. So, students who they were meeting with on a regular basis, as soon as the schools closed, they reached out to those students and continued those relationships. ECE and the education authorities did our best to let all students know that those counsellors were still available to speak with any student, so it's just not the ones who already have relationships. They're still available...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a big question. There are 10 different education bodies and 49 different schools in 33 different communities, so a lot of different steps have been taken. As the Member noted, school was closed in mid-March, and the decision to close it for the remainder of the school year was made, I believe, on about March 26th. The reason for that is because the authorities and myself felt that, if you waited every two weeks to see if we would reopen, we wouldn't be putting the effort into delivering distance learning, and so the decision was made to close the schools for the...

I don't know if this is necessarily the time to be introducing new programming. The landscape has changed, and we went from in-person to distance learning in the matter of weeks. The focus right now is on preparing for distance learning, at least for the first semester. There is no plan to add new programs. However, the Member is right that we do need to grow our programming, and that's part of the transformation work, part of the strengthening of the foundation, ensuring that the administrative processes we have in place support the growth of programming. Maybe we take some of the...

No. This isn't the forum where those would be discovered. There won't be decisions made behind closed doors that someone has to ask me about. It's going to be a much more transparent process than that. What's happening right now is that there is a plan in place, and it's been refined. A lot of the work has been done, and I spoke about this, not in the last sitting necessarily but the first part of this sitting which we had back in February/March. I had a plan, and I was taking it to Cabinet so it could then be shared with the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight. I am just...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The COVID-19 global pandemic has had profound effects on people around the world, including residents across the Northwest Territories. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment has been working tirelessly to adapt its programs and services to help lighten the economic, social, and emotional weights of the pandemic, and I would like to provide an update to the public about those efforts.

We recognize the essential role that licensed early learning and childcare programs have for our youngest residents and their families. As a result, ECE has continued to flow...

That's part of the work that we'll be undertaking in the coming months. We need to come up with a facilities plan. There is clearly work that needs to be done at all the locations, and then, there's work that can be done in the communities as well in terms of the community learning centres and the different types of access we can have there. We are undertaking that work, creating a facilities plan to let us know exactly what we need. I'm anxious to get that money, too, but it's hard to go to the feds and say, "We know we need something, but we don't have a plan for you just yet." They don't...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All the activities planned to be completed in this Assembly are still on track to be completed in this Assembly. Like everything else, the last two months has been exclusively focused on COVID-19. We are about two months behind in a lot of ways, which has pushed some of the things I was hoping to have done this summer back a few months. Other than that, things are on track. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Certainly, commissioned art is different from something that someone might buy at the store to fill an empty wall, and there is not much consideration put into that piece of art. No, it is a different level that the Member is talking about. I will work with the Minister of Infrastructure. The department has some expertise in asset management and combine that with the expertise that we have in the culture and heritage division and see what we can do to remedy this problem because it is a shame when you see a piece of art that means a lot to a lot of people buried under the snow and degrading...

Right now, there are no government-wide guidelines. However, not just ECE but ECE in collaboration with all departments has put together the Culture and Heritage Strategic Framework that is 2015 to 2025 as well as four-year action plan that is 2019 to 2022. As part of that framework and action plan, one of the goals is to safeguard heritage, including artwork in government buildings that requires special consideration and preservation. We have put our mind to it, but the work has not quite begun yet. I will leave it there. I won't answer all of the questions in advance from the Member.

No, there is not right now. The government has a lot of artwork. There are a lot of government buildings, and they have lots of things on the walls. That means there is artwork that could be worth virtually nothing, and there could be some large pieces, like the Member has referenced, that could be worth quite a bit. There was an inventory taken by ITI, I believe, about 10 years ago, that looked at all of this, but nothing has been done since. I think the reason for that is because this massive artwork, it would cost more than all of the work combined is worth to inventory it, so I think that...