Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize my constituency assistant Wendy Morgan in the visitors gallery today, and with her is Mr. Tony Mammone from Calgary, with ATCO Sustainable Communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Is the Minister of Health and Social Services aware of any downside of putting a really, really deterring kind of a tax on cigarettes? Is he aware of any downside to doing that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t make a Member’s statement today because I didn’t think we were doing Members’ statements, but now we’re not doing questions, so I’m going to do questions.

In response to my colleague from Range Lake’s Member’s statement about obesity and all those statistics that he put out there, I’d like to talk about smoking a little bit. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services some questions about smoking.

I’m really glad I never started smoking, because it is a really strong addiction, and I don’t have very much willpower and I really, really, first of...

Mr. Chair, I have questions and issues with this concept of universal daycare and daycare in every community and subsidizing daycares because the government is now going in competition with daycares and junior kindergarten. The economics of all of this just sounds a little bit sketchy to me. Mr. Chair is giving me a questioning look. If we are going to take away the four-year-olds, is that going to make all of the private daycares unviable so now we have to financially support businesses that are in the daycare business because the government is… We’re going to pay twice. Let’s put it that way...

I’d like to thank the Minister for that. Can the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment describe his department’s efforts to address bullying through collaboration with any other departments such as Municipal and Community Affairs or the Department of Health and Social Services? Could the Minister describe if there are any of those kinds of collaborations taking place?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. February 26th is Pink Shirt Day. It’s a day when we take a stand against bullying by wearing a pink shirt or a pink scarf or a pink flower.

This annual day has unlikely beginnings. It started with a simple protest in 2007 following a bullying incident at a rural Nova Scotia high school. A ninth grade male student had been bullied for wearing a pink shirt, and in a gesture of solidarity, two senior high school boys purchased and distributed 50 pink shirts. To the organizers’ surprise, the protest made national headlines. Shortly after, several provincial Premiers...

Oh, okay, so it’s our Junior Kindergarten Program that’s going to make private daycare unviable. I don’t know. The whole economics around this just sounds a little bit different to me and a little bit difficult to understand. It’s a great idea, universal daycare, everybody can take their kids from zero to three then the school will take them from four to…

But to the motion, well, this is the motion. You’re asking this government to spend more money on creating daycare spaces. That is the motion. That’s what I’m talking about. Anyway, I can’t support the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank Mr. Dolynny for bringing this motion forward. Had it been a motion to delete the program review office I would have supported it. I will support this one, though, which is an interim measure, I guess, to look at what the program review office actually does.

I also was part of the Regular Members’ committee who sat down at the beginning of the 16th Assembly and thought there must be some areas where we could improve on the efficiency, eliminate redundancy and duplication. We thought there were places to find money in the system. That was the intent...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Evidence suggests that suspending a bully is not effective because it basically rewards the bully with a vacation from school.

I’d like to ask the Minister, what progress has the department made towards a tiered approached to discipline in the schools with suspensions as a last resort?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Ramsay.