Jackson Lafferty

If it is the will of this Assembly, I will be more than willing to present that idea to the federal government. But I haven’t heard much from this Assembly if this is a priority for this government. If it is, then I’d like to know from this Assembly. Then I can put a bug in the federal Minister’s ear that this is of high importance for the territorial government. I haven’t heard that to date. There are other pressing issues that we certainly are dealing with. I feel that we need to tackle more of those small issues that we can certainly achieve.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, would like to recognize the new Commanding Officer, Mr. Wade Blake, who is fulfilling a new role as commanding officer. I’d like to thank Mr. Middleton for all these years of commitment and dedication and wish him all the luck in his retirement. I also recognize Bronwyn Watters, my deputy minister of the Justice department.

I do believe we are making some changes in our curriculum, as long as it benefits the communities, benefits the schools, benefits the students. If we do it for one, we have to do it for all jurisdictions, not just one region. So, Mr. Speaker, those are the areas that we continue to have with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. There is valuable information and discussions taking place. Each of the regions are well represented and very fruitful discussions are happening. So, Mr. Speaker, all the issues addressed here today are being addressed at those particular committee meetings...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my understanding is that it is totally committed to the YWCA. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, the amount of funding that we provide to education councils, it’s to their discretion on where to disclose the funds, whether it be to the elders or to the Mentorship Program. Some of the school districts are providing mentorship to improve student attendance using various examples. So it will be up to the Sahtu education council to provide that available information.

Mr. Speaker, although this is a small initiative that we’ve initiated, we are already making progress, we are seeing some changes in student attendance going up a bit. Mr. Speaker, on a going forward basis, this...

We are doing research in other jurisdictions as well. That should be completed and a discussion paper should be available within the next six months to the standing committee. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, we are currently developing a framework for the whole Northwest Territories, but each jurisdiction has their own orientation package. Again, I’ll refer back to the Tlicho Community Services Agency where they have the On-the-Land Barren Land Program where newly recruited teachers go out on the land with the elders. It has been a very successful program, but that’s one jurisdiction. We’re looking at the cross-cultural throughout the Northwest Territories as an orientation package. Mr. Speaker, we are developing one and we’ll certainly get back to the Members on that. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The quick answer is most definitely yes, because those officers that need to go to the communities without detachments, such as Wrigley or Tsiigehtchic, we definitely need to work out some agreement in that area. We want to have more presence in the community by RCMP, but sometimes there’s no accommodation. If they provide accommodation, it’s not suitable to their standards as well. So we have to identify the specs as well. When I was talking about the infrastructure, that also includes the detachment where it has to be according to the “G” Division specs on the detachment as...

We are looking at other alternatives to educating our students. The Member is correct that in some of the areas it could be based on their performance as opposed to their attendance. That’s an area we’re also looking at. We’re also dealing with the attendance issue on formula funding on enrolment. But there is a very successful project happening in the South Slave region. We went to visit Fort Simpson and Fort Resolution on their particular program, an alternative program. I must say this is an area we are very interested in as a department that we can probably pilot project in other regions...

Mahsi Mr. Chairman. We can set dates but if the federal government doesn’t come into play, then it really doesn’t work for us. But I can share with the Member that those areas that we need to discuss further with the standing committee we could give, let’s say, 10 years from now all the communities will be filled with detachments. Of course, that is our goal and objective. But at the same time it has taken some time for the federal government to make a commitment in that area, so it is going to be very difficult in small communities.

It is similar with the nursing, with the community...