Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my experience, nothing is free in this world. The point is that the funding for the junior kindergarten is going to be from within and now it’s affecting other organizations, other communities that have Head Start programs. My concern is that these Head Start programs and other organizations will fail. I’m just wondering: Has the department completely assessed this in their plan to launch junior kindergarten both in the small communities and in the larger centres?

I guess the issue is if those organizations don’t have four-year-olds, are they funded per capita or per student? How will they continue to exist? Will the enrolments be so declined that they will not be able to operate? Has the department looked at that enrolment and do they fund per student?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was able to go back to Hay River this weekend and saw that there were biathletes training in Hay River for the Arctic Winter Games. Today I thought I’d recognize all those athletes out there practicing and training throughout the Northwest Territories for the Arctic Winter Games next week.

I’d like to commend all those people that have helped them, the coaches, their parents. I look forward to being at the Arctic Winter Games next week. We have 35 athletes and six coaches from Hay River ourselves, and many of their parents are travelling to Fairbanks, Alaska, to be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank my colleagues, Mrs. Groenewegen and Mr. Miltenberger, for bringing forward this motion. They were the mover and seconder of this motion, but we did discuss this topic in Caucus several times and it has been done with heavy heart and consideration of a whole bunch of different issues.

I will not be supporting the motion because I feel that it’s not something we should be doing. I went home, talked to my constituents and a bunch of them had concerns and issues with it. The other thing is that as a member of the Board of Management here in the...

I appreciate that they would have to do this, but what is the mechanism that the government uses to make sure that this is being done? Obviously, we’re hearing those concerns in our community and it’s not being fulfilled. The territorial NGOs that have agents in Hay River are not being represented.

What is the government doing to make sure that these mandates are being fulfilled?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize Kim Mabbitt from Hay River. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, following in the footsteps of the other Members and the fact that this being the first bill of 10 to come forward, I thought it would be a good point to make some comments about the whole process and the fact that there is very limited debate and discussion on the mirror legislation. I’m not that critical of that issue because I know when we were discussing devolution that mirror legislation was one of those requirements of devolution. I was supportive of devolution. Most of my constituents were supportive of devolution, so I think, for the most part, I’m very...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I woke up thinking of Stompin’ Tom this morning. It’s hockey night tonight because tonight we start Polar Pond Hockey in Hay River. It’s an annual event, a spring event. The 10 rinks are built on the Hay River. The big blue tent is up and being fitted with facilities for the upcoming event. There are concessions there this weekend. The event was a question mark this year. It was a question because of Arctic Winter Games and because of so many factors going on whether we’d do it this year or we’d skip. But the crew all got together and said, you know what? We’re going to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m a little frustrated with those answers about the maintenance because I’m getting a different story from the Sahtu than what the department is giving us.

But I guess my next question is: What is the department’s communication protocol? I know the Minister indicated in his speech about the website, but how else is the public to know that these roads are shutting down to nighttime only and eventually when they’re getting ready to close? What kind of information are we giving them and what kind of lead time are we giving that it’s going to be shut down within 24 hours or...

Thank you. In the Minister’s statement he talked about ConocoPhillips and industry participating in the road construction. I’m just wondering what kind of feedback we’re getting with these closures from industry. Are they concerned about the length of time and the early closures of these roads?