Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act, be read for the third time. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The daycare funding is based on the enrolment of the children in the daycare, similar to the school operation. We continue to monitor that. We talked about it within our department how we can improve in those areas where students may be missing for up to five days. I guess you can say the organizations get less funding due to that fact. But we will continue to look at that. Certainly we continue to re-evaluate our position, our programs within our current system, again, highlighting what kind of penalization is there for an organization and how we can improve in those areas. We continue to...

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. To my left I have Mark Aitken, director of legislation, and Gary McDougall, director of legal registries. Mahsi, Mr. Chairman.

Certainly the program will be rolled out within a couple of weeks, three weeks. Certainly we will continue to monitor the program itself and how the program is going, and also looking out for other jurisdictions and how their program is doing, with mandatory or without mandatory. We can probably say late fall we’ll certainly look at this as if it could be mandatory at that time. Certainly we need to have some time to deliver the program, see how it turns out. From there we’ll certainly decide to move forward and we’ll certainly give the standing committee an update at that time.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to speak to you about Bill 5, the Professional Corporations Act.

This bill would allow self-employed members of regulated professions to incorporate where they are not now permitted to do so; provided that the member’s professional responsibilities are not affected.

Lawyers, accountants and most health professionals may not currently incorporate, as the limited liability of an ordinary business corporation is inconsistent with their professional responsibilities. While members of these professions accept that liability for professional errors or misconduct...

Certainly those areas will be captured in the renewing of our Aboriginal Languages Strategy. We will be consulting with the aboriginal stakeholders, the leaders, the parents, the community organizations. Those are the experts at the community level. The 33 communities that we serve we certainly like to hear their input on the challenges. What are the gaps? What are the root causes of the challenges we’re faced with today? We like to hear them out, because we certainly don’t have, as a department, all the answers. So we’re reaching out to the communities to say give us solutions to work from...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly they are, for a number of years now, developing programs that meet the needs of the communities, whether it be the language, the programming, the cultural on-the-land program, taking students out on the land, and just immersion programs into the schools. Not only that, but we are developing some strategies to deal with our languages and eliminating the educational gaps within our schools in the Northwest Territories. So there are those two strategies in place. We’ve also just developed a strategy on literacy, 2008-2018, that deals specifically with the low...

Clearly this has been a challenge for us within the school system. We’re trying to tackle that issue. I think out of this strategy certainly that will be one of the key topics of discussion on a going-forward basis. How can we get around hiring elders in the schools without penalizing their pension? Those are the areas. The Member also gave us some ideas on how to get around the system. We’re clearly looking for solutions from the communities on getting around the system. Certainly that will be one of the primary discussions that we’ll be having, so there are no impacts on the elders and...

Certainly we’ve heard from visitors in the communities in the regions and coming from the Dene Nation meeting just last week. We’ve heard over and over the importance of preserving and revitalizing our language and enhancing our language. That is certainly one of the prime focuses of our Department of Education and this government. We will certainly do what we can to deal with those strategies. That’s the key message that we’re receiving from the communities. It is our priority to promote that even more into the communities and schools. We’ve certainly talked about using the elders. We have...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [Statement delivered in aboriginal language and then in English]

We have been celebrating aboriginal languages and cultures during the month on an annual basis. There will be a variety of things happening in different communities around the North such as radio contests, luncheons at community teaching and learning centres. There will also be aboriginal language materials on display and the luncheon here at the Great Hall on Thursday.

We recognize that languages play a crucial and essential role in the lives of the aboriginal communities in the Northwest Territories. It...