Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are also for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I have a lot of questions, but let me start in my little preamble, my short preamble to say that we talk, as a government, about regional capacity and building capacity. Part of that capacity building in Hay River is our schools, and right now I realize that the occupancy levels in our schools are not as high as they could be, and I think that’s what left the door open for this idea of this swap, but I do want to say that with this government’s commitment to decentralization and some of the...

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Is committee agreed?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe in deleting this, we have not failed to speak of the wages because further down in the motion it says that early childhood education workers be recognized as education professionals and paid wages accordingly. I think that covers the issue of the pay. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did not speak to the motion, now that we’re back to the motion.

Mr. Speaker, in the whereas, and it says “and whereas early childhood education workers are professionals that should be paid the same wages as our teachers,” I have an issue with that because I don’t know what the early childhood education requirements are for credentials to teach early childhood education compared to teachers. I am pretty sure that teachers need some kind of a degree. I don’t know how long it takes to get a diploma or certificate in early childhood education.

So, we are now telling all...

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Is committee agreed?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope I live to be 99 years old.

Within the next 30 days, the Northwest Territories takes on the responsibility for land and resource management. We have never had a better opportunity or a greater need to cut the amount of red tape related to doing business in the North.

Every year the Canadian Federation of Independent Business grades provinces and territories on their efforts to reduce red tape through political leadership, public measurement and constraints on regulators, legislative commitment, and progress on action to reduce regulatory burdens. The Northwest...

Thank you. We will commence with that after a brief break.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order this afternoon. I could read that list of documents, but I think I’ll just say there are numerous items before the committee today. I’d like to ask what is the wish of the committee. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to talk about an issue that we, as MLAs, hear about on a very regular basis, and that is sometimes there are issues in our public service.

Mr. Speaker, we have a very large public service for a jurisdiction this size. We heard questions in this House last week about the Safe Disclosure Act and how if employees have problems in the workplace, they can use this as a vehicle to express concern. However, we also heard from the Minister that not one issue has ever been raised through this vehicle.

The Department of Human Resources has been before us in Committee...