R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, I don't have that I have it in my hands but I can't flip through this document and find that information at the moment. I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories saved zero dollars due to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, CERB. We exempted that. So if you were collecting income assistance and you received CERB, we did not count that against your income. When the Canada Recovery Benefits, CRB, came out, that was counted as income. Notices were sent to income assistance clients. There was an advertising campaign. We let MLAs know that that was the case. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The productive choice productive choices are something that are in the legislation, the income assistance regulations. Individuals who are collecting income assistance are required to participate in a productive choice unless they are seniors or persons with disabilities I believe.

The productive choices, there's a variety of them. But currently everyone is enrolled in the wellness productive choice which we instituted at the beginning of the pandemic where people were required to take care of themselves and their families. And so that is what people are currently...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I just wanted to take this opportunity to clarify. I've never claimed to be a lawyer. I've never said that all students go to university. What I said is in Hansard yesterday and I apologize if I appeared as though I was showboating. I will say I was getting a little frustrated but I never intend to showboat. I think about an elder I spoke with in your constituency, Mr. Speaker, when I was there, and they were talking about how they watch the Legislative Assembly and they appreciate the level of decorum in here, and I always try to maintain that. So I apologize to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So currently there is nothing on the books to build a new permanent facility at Ecole Boreale. As the MLA, I advocated for, you know, that in the past, advocated for a gym, advocating for all of these issues as the Member is doing now. Unfortunately, there was a decision made, you know, 15 years ago that we are now dealing with. It would have been great if they had just built a permanent building at that point. But now we're at the point where we have many schools that are in need of repair. There's 49 schools in the territory, you know, over 50 years old some of them...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I agree, students need a place to learn that is supportive of that learning. And in a supportive learning environment, staff need a safe supportive workplace as well. And so as soon as we learned about this, we started working with the Department of Infrastructure, and there will be a permanent fix in place over the summer. So in the next school year, it will no longer be an issue. It would be great if we could fix this issue before the summer, fix it now, but it's a very disruptive process. I believe it involves digging up the parking lot and, you know, the smell...

Mr. Speaker, as another school year comes to a close for students across the Northwest Territories, I would like to recognize this year’s graduates. Whether they are graduating from kindergarten, high school, or a postsecondary institution like Aurora College, the territory’s graduates have a lot to be proud of.

Applause

The pandemic has created unprecedented disruptions in every sector of society. The last two years have posed great challenges for residents, with the impacts of COVID19 taking an emotional, mental and physical toll on the health and wellbeing of NWT residents, communities...

Favour.

In favour.

In favour.