Jackson Lafferty

Most definitely this will be one of the topics of discussion when I meet with the board chairs.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This is one of the areas that is of great interest to us, as well, since we’ve heard in the news the bullying has increased. We do currently have policies in place that deal with the local school boards, the regional school boards, but we talk about the legislation for the overall Northwest Territories. That is an area that we are exploring.

I wish to come back to the Members within six months or within a year to highlight what we found, and we are comparing with other jurisdictions as Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. We have an ongoing dialogue with them. We will provide that...

As the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, I gave a directive to the school boards, because we provide funding for culture-based programs and we noticed some of the money wasn’t being expended thoroughly into the culture-based programming. There’s been a directive given, so the school boards are fully aware that we need to do more in those areas and utilizing the elders, utilizing the community members as expertise. We will continue to push that forward with the school boards as well.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We definitely don’t accept bullying in schools. Part of the going forward basis, I guess, there are certainly individuals that we heavily depend on. There are elders in the schools that we’re going to be introducing and, as the Member alluded to, Aboriginal-speaking teachers. Most of the students look up to their teachers, look up to their siblings, as well, older siblings. That is part of the plan with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, to introduce those individuals who are highly respected at the community level that can teach our children. That is the...

There are six universities in Canada that provide doctor of veterinary medicine programs. After consultation with the University of Saskatchewan in September 2009, after the cut in the programming budget, my department was advised by the University of Saskatchewan that they do not have the policy that would charge NWT students the out-of-province tuition and that they would look at each NWT student’s application on a case-by-case basis. So there is an opportunity there for those students.

Mahsi. This particular program at the University of Saskatchewan is a veterinary program. As I stated, there is a student that’s attending. We sponsor 1,400 students and we’re talking about one seat that’s $25,000, and just imagine – we have huge numbers – the cost of that, and on top of that there’s additional costs as well. But it is needed. We’ve seen some articles in the newspaper, as well, in the Northwest Territories and other parts of the country and we do have veterinarians coming out, as well, to work in the Northwest Territories and other parts of the provinces. So we’ll continue...

The answer will be yes. We are gathering all of the information. We will provide those to the board chairs as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, there are various school boards that have policies addressing bullying. I don’t have the specifics of those policies before me, but each school board has their own jurisdictional policy that deals with their students in that region in the communities. I can provide that information once I get my hands on them. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. That is one of the overall plans. We noticed there was an article in the South Slave Journal highlighting various programming, which highlighted me, as the Minister responsible, to work closely with the principals and the school boards, which we’ve done in the past and will continue to do, as well as working with Municipal and Community Affairs, working with Health and Justice. This is a collaborative approach when it comes to the wellness of all children of the Northwest Territories. That is our overall mandate. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, February 20th to 24th marks Education Week. We are celebrating the academic achievements of students across the Northwest Territories and recognizing educators who support and strengthen our education system.

This year we are recognizing Dr. Curtis Brown and Mr. Allan Karasiuk from the South Slave region. Last fall Dr. Brown received the Canadian Association of School Administrators Award for the best school superintendent in Canada. As well, Mr. Karasiuk received one of forty 2012 awards for Canada’s Outstanding Principal from The Learning

Centre. They are tremendous educators and...