Bob Bromley

Thank you. Next on my list is Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. We have been accumulating general comments, but do you want that answered right away by the Minister?

That’s good to hear and I hope the Minister will keep us apprised on that. Thank you.

I’m very pleased to hear those comments from the Minister. The scientific information is obviously too powerful to ignore here. If foresters growing trees had similar information, for example, they wouldn’t wait until seedlings are five years old to get the best yields. They’d pour on the fertilizer the moment the seed is planted and we must do the same with our most precious resources.

Given the Aboriginal Student Initiative work will be incomplete without full inclusion of early childhood development considerations, and yet the ECE review is ongoing, how will the Minister ensure that results...

The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is going ahead, with much good work done. In handing this work over to the next Assembly, I’m asking the Minister to ensure that resources are earmarked to efficiently achieve the huge potential we now realize we can achieve through early childhood development with much less cost than the greater and too-late cost during schooling. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to confirm, the work done in the past, it would amount to about $1.1 million. Is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A key priority of my mandate has been promotion of early childhood development because of its critical role in growing our next healthy generation. Key connections exist with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. As I noted last session, with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative moving to completion before the early childhood development review is done, there is potential for a fundamental error in planning. We can’t set an informed course for student achievement until we’ve considered development of young children before they enter the school system.

W...

I find myself agreeing with the Minister that there should be no reason to include this clause in this piece of legislation. The land claims legislation, the settlement legislation has these clauses in it, and it’s clear that that is the law and we know that it takes precedence over all other legislation. Unfortunately, although the Minister has suggested, I believe, that we put this in the Interpretation Act and therefore there would be even greater clarity if it was needed, the government has been totally inconsistent in applying this clause in their legislation. So we find it lacking and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I very much appreciate that commitment from the Minister. I’d like to ask if the Minister has ensured, or this government has ensured that the cleanup costs of this situation are provided for in the agreement-in-principle on devolution that this government has signed, given that we know what the costs… Now, we have some experience at trying to clear the land of squatters. We know what the costs are, and there are many, many more on the federal lands that we may soon be responsible for. Are the costs of that accounted for in the agreement-in-principle and will the...

That’s quite a bit of slippage, obviously, from what was previously the plan. I believe this work is intended to be completed by the end of December of this year, so that is clearly in jeopardy. I would ask the Minister to please keep us informed on that and perhaps explain that delay.

In the February session, Mr. Speaker, I also congratulated the Minister on the work underway to prosecute current block land transfer squatters and stop new squatting. I pointed out that squatting on Commissioner’s land is only part of the problem and that the federal government does nothing to help. I asked the...