Wendy Bisaro

That’s good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t really hear an answer to my question, so I’d like to ask the Minister if he, with all this information that’s been compiled between the department and the education authorities, would he commit to providing to me and to other Members a school-by-school indication of pupil-teacher ratio as it stands now in each school in the territory?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple of questions here. There is a large increase in grants and contributions and a fairly large increase in fees and payments. Could I get an explanation of what those increases are for, from, to, et cetera?

Thanks to the Minister. I do want to move forward, as well, but I don’t want to move forward at the expense of some education authorities. I appreciate that the department is monitoring, but I did ask the Minister when this commitment will start. If an education authority goes over the 16 to 1 PTR in the very first year that their funding is reduced, is that when the commitment kicks in?

The other part of this is I would like to know from the Minister if this commitment is ongoing, so once we get beyond the implementation of junior kindergarten and something changes so an education authority...

Thanks to the Minister for that confirmation. I wanted to make a comment to the loss in this year’s budget of the money for oral health care. It was $468,000, I believe. I know that this was federal money, but I think the Minister heard from the Social Programs committee that this is something which the committee considers to be really important, a basic prevention program for young children. I know that the Minister has said in I think it was in his response to people’s comments that there is a plan for oral health, that we’re studying what we’re doing and we’re going to have a plan sometime...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The deeper I delve into the 2014-15 budget, the more confused I become. Regular Members have been given huge amounts of information in the last two weeks and instead of clarity, it has only served to confuse. It didn’t have to be this way. The Finance Minister and Cabinet could have chosen to be fulsome, clear and concise in their meetings with Regular Members, but they have been anything but.

We’ve had briefings on the government’s fiscal strategy, on the budget before us, on the status of employee positions and each briefing obfuscates the financial picture a little...

Thanks to the Minister. I’m not sure I can give you the info. It was pretty much I want you to know this, but I don’t think I’ve got enough detail that I can share with you to help you figure out what went wrong.

There is money in the budget for midwifery. I didn’t know if that was the Minister who said that or if that was in the budget address, and I’m very glad to hear that. My understanding is that it’s going to put, at least I’m thinking it’s one midwife, but one or two midwives in Inuvik in the 2014-15 budget year. If I could get confirmation on that, and if I could hear from the Minister...

I move that we report progress. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

---Carried

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of comments I want to make here, or questions, I guess. The first one has to do with the system human resource planning division. It’s been a while now since the recruitment of health professionals has been moved back to the Department of Health and Social Services. I’d like to hear from the Minister or from the department whether or not they’ve done an evaluation of how well it’s working to have that function back within the department.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just have a question here on 8-33 under family violence funding. The Family Violence Coalition a while ago put forward 19 recommendations. I know the Minister has said that the Health department is working on them.

Is the Family Violence Coalition money in this budget or is it in another department? I can never remember quite where it is. If it is in here, is there a focus on the 19 recommendations from the Family Violence Coalition? Thank you.