Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Shane Clark. I can’t really see if he’s still up there, but Shane is the proud father, I know, of a couple of our Pages here, twins Sophie and Grace Clark. Welcome to the House.

I’d like to also, at this time, express appreciation to our Pages once again for all the service they’ve provided during this very busy session. Our long-suffering Pages in particular from Weledeh, besides Sophie and Grace we’ve also had Shiri MacPherson, who is the daughter of our Law Clerk, Sheila MacPherson. We’ve also had Niva Stephenson and Jacob Schubert. Again, thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I began reviewing the Education Renewal Initiative, anticipating a statement detailing its failures. Wrong. In fact, I was impressed and offer my compliments to the people who have worked so hard to develop it and bring it forward.

The plan draws on research which reveals the need to teach, or a competency-based model that works better with how a child’s brain actually functions, with more integration of learning across subjects. Self-worth is recognized as essential for success in school for everyone.

More than knowledge and skills, learning involves the integration of...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks to the Minister for his opening remarks. I just want to put in a word here of appreciation, on behalf of the folks in Detah and all those that use that road, to my colleagues and to the Minister and all my colleagues in the House for approving this or proposing this expenditure.

It’s been a very long time. I think people know that the road was originally just thrown in almost on an incidental basis. They got a tractor out there and basically put soil and gravel on top of the vegetation. It wasn’t even properly cleared. As a result, it’s suffered a lot of problems...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on the Order Paper. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent granted

Mr. Speaker, the data are crystal clear. The research is crystal clear. Brain development primarily takes place by age three and development of the neuro pathways takes place by age three, so the focus needs to be in the ages zero to three. Research is also showing that starting kindergarten at age four with junior kindergarten does not provide net benefits to learning over normal kindergarten programs, as my colleague Ms. Bisaro has outlined.

Given this evidence, does the Minister agree that, because the most important brain development occurs from age zero to three, that establishing junior...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement earlier today with questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment specifically related to the Education Renewal Initiative. I’d like to focus on the latest research on how our children are doing. We have been testing young children approaching school age with a test called the Early Development Indicator. Could the Minister confirm that the latest data from the Early Development Indicator work is showing that 35 to 60 percent of children approaching school age in our smaller communities have development...

For now I support going forward with the ERI, using existing resources. In order to achieve any success, an absolute imperative is to steadily and intelligently build our early childhood development initiative to a seven to 10 million dollar program annually. Assuming we can make measurable ECD progress in five years, then and only then would be the time, based on sound evaluation of progress, to consider supplementing resources to the ERI.

Let’s get it right from the very start. Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to participate in this debate today and discussion of the final report. I’d like to thank the Electoral Boundaries Commission for their work. Trying to penetrate this quagmire, it is certainly never an easy job or an easy process, but I think we do recognize that and try and provide some helpful guidelines, specifically the plus or minus 25 percent goal for fair representation; that is every riding should be within 25 percent of the mean population, the average number of people per riding in order to be considered fair representation, and that we should give...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Clearly, in terms of the guidelines that were presented to the commission, this is the worst of the three scenarios they presented. It does not resolve the issues of under- and overrepresentation. As well, the issues of culture and language remain as we’ve heard for at least two groups.

I would particularly like to say for Monfwi this is unfair and perpetuates an unfairness that’s been on record for some time now. This is our opportunity to correct that, I would say. So I don’t think we should be holding our head up much if we do pass this motion.

I’d also like to say...

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, colleagues. I’ll wrap up here. I wasn’t watching the clock.

We need to increase fairer representation across our territory while being as sensitive as possible to the recognition of cultural and language groups and determining constituency boundaries. We need to empower the next commission to grapple with and confront the likely need to cross some cultural or language group boundaries in order to achieve more fair representation.

As an MLA whose riding has the highest population by far, and with the greatest diversity of cultures, lifestyles and community...