Julie Green

Thank you for that information. Is it possible for the Department of Education to work with childcare providers in Yellowknife to create space in the new school building that will replace J.H. Sissons, to explore that possibility? Thank you.

Thank you. What I take out of that is that Yellowknife is disadvantaged because it is a large community, and it is not a majority Indigenous community. That doesn't make sense to me, because the waiting lists for childcare in Yellowknife are very substantial and they represent a significant barrier to recruiting staff into jobs; not only government jobs, but private industry jobs. People think long and hard about coming here because childcare is so unavailable. It seems like there is an opportunity to do some partnership conversation here. I'm unclear why the Minister is unwilling to even talk...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister confirm that the renovation and addition at Mangilaluk School in Tuktoyaktuk will include space for future childcare needs? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just briefly, I'd like to get an understanding about the situation with providing space for childcare within school replacements or renovations. I'm not going to make, again, the whole case for why it's important. Let's just say that it is, and that childcare construction is at a very high standard, so it's very difficult to find places that meet the requirements unless they are purpose-built. On what basis does the department decide to include childcare space in new schools and in renovations, extensive renovations to schools? Thank you.

I wonder what the plan is to secure the money to implement the report's recommendations. I realize that there is an election coming, but will there be any work done on an FMB submission so that there will be money for additional resources, should they be required?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for the passion that he brings to this issue. Lastly, I want to follow up the statement that I made in the winter about the need for a child and youth advocate. The Minister indicated that his staff could update research on the idea, and I am wondering what progress he can report on this commitment.

Thanks to the Minister for his response. A second concern I have is about the staff time, the time that is that staff will be spending on compliance processes versus time they will spend with their eyes on their clients. I can understand that this approach is somewhat a reaction to the report from the Office of the Auditor General and to step up compliance, but can the Minister assure us that, despite the focus on process, time with clients will actually improve?

Thank you. The Director of Corrections wanted to retain the ultimate authority over discipline in the correctional facility, which we understand. What we have here is an independent adjudication process. It will receive oversight by the Director of Corrections, but the key phrase here is that the director "may confirm, quash, or reduce" the periods of separate confinement, but he cannot or she cannot increase it. So this is a way to meet the needs of both the independence of the adjudicators and the need for the correctional facility to retain the ultimate authority over separate confinement...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I welcome the release this week of the Child and Family Services Quality Improvement Plan. This plan responds to the Office of the Auditor General's report last year about the ways in which government continued to fail kids in care despite a 2014 Office of the Auditor General report that identified many of the same problems.

The plan stresses how improving outcomes for the 1,000 children in care in the Northwest Territories must be achieved, specifically by complying with the policies and legislation that govern their care. Some highlights of the plan for me come from the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to add to the Minister's opening comments about some of the substantive changes that were negotiated and agreed to in the clause-by-clause review. As one of my colleagues mentioned, there were 32 motions, and it is certainly not my intention to go over all of them.

Some of the significant changes to the bill included a statement of purpose for the bill and guiding principles, a statement of victims' rights, and the inclusion of the development and offering of both general and rehabilitative programs that would be offered to both sentenced and remanded inmates...