Wendy Bisaro

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I want to, first of all, thank the seconder, Mr. Nadli, for seconding the motion so we could bring it forward. I would like to thank all of my colleagues who made comments for your support. To Mr. Hawkins, the arsenic trioxide fits in a rather larger building. It’s the Bellanca Building, not the courthouse, unfortunately. So fill up the Bellanca Building and that’s our 237,000 tons of arsenic trioxide.

I appreciate Mr. Miltenberger’s comments that he recognizes the amount of work that’s been done. This motion asks that Mr. Miltenberger, and hopefully the federal Ministers...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS the Giant Mine leaves a terrible environmental legacy in the NWT;

AND WHEREAS there is still significant concern with the Giant Mine Remediation Project as envisioned by the federal and territorial governments;

AND WHEREAS the Report of Environmental Assessment by the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board resolves some limitations with the original remediation plan and presents a reasonable and sound path to a closure program that will build accountability and public trust in the project;

AND WHEREAS the five-year environmental assessment was a thorough...

I am, unfortunately, dismayed to hear the Minister say, not in my backyard. I would hope that he, as a Minister, that if bullying is important to him, that he would push it with the other Ministers and bring forward some legislation to address the bigger issue of bullying.

One of the things, though, that was in the motion which the House passed in February of 2012, part of the motion spoke to an education and awareness campaign. It was asked for and it was intended to be territory-wide.

I would like to ask the Minister what plans are in place to put in place an education and awareness campaign...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to address my questions today to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to follow up on my statement where I talked about the amendments to the Education Act. I stated in my statement that the issue of bullying and cyber-bullying is not just an issue that belongs within the Education department or within our schools. It is a societal issue.

I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not – albeit I’m glad that we have these amendments going forward – the Minister and or other departments within the government are considering plans for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise this afternoon on a point of privilege. I would like to speak to a point of privilege from a quote by Mr. Menicoche on Friday, October 18th. I did wait for this opportunity to bring the point up. I wanted to check unedited Hansard. I will quote from unedited Hansard, page 35 from Friday, October 18th. Mr. Menicoche says, “Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The media was quick up that in the capital plan there’s nothing for Yellowknife, and I’m glad.” Laughter.

I think the Hansard crew may have missed out a couple of words. I think it should say, “The media was...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it answers the question. It is a definite maybe, I think is what I heard. I guess it concerns me that again we have projects in this capital budget which really are suggesting that we are going to have school additions or renovations, not in 2014-15 but maybe the year after, but it doesn’t sound like that is very feasible. With the amount of work that is required to do once the planning study is done, unless it is done early on in the fiscal year, there is no way that the project is going to get through the capital plan. It also has to be a high priority in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have to respectfully disagree with the comments from my colleague to my left. The campus here in Yellowknife is full and it is full to overflowing. It has been in need of some kind of an examination of the situation for probably five years, maybe 10 years now. Several years ago, when the lease was up for Northern United Place, where Aurora College Yellowknife Campus is now located, I believe I remember hearing the Minister say that, well, this is just going to be for a short time, we were going to do a planning study and we were going to look at building a facility to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would like to continue with our consideration of Tabled Document 107-17(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2014-2015, and we would like to start with the Department of Education, and Transportation, time willing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Giant Mine site is an historic part of Yellowknife and the NWT, but it is a blight on our landscape, and worse, it is the biggest environmental liability in this country, one which we may have in this community forever, for eternity. I have trouble even contemplating that. One hundred years is an amount of time I can rationalize, even several hundred years, but forever? That’s beyond comprehension for most of us and certainly for me.

The federal government has assumed responsibility for the remediation of the Giant Mine site, but we, the GNWT, have also assumed some...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for his response. Unfortunately, I didn’t hear in there that we have plans for a territorial-wide campaign to educate not just the schools but the people outside the schools, parents, people in the workplace and so on.

I would like to ask the Minister, he says that there is a communications plan being developed, he talked about a couple of other things that are being developed, I would like to know from the Minister when we can see this communications plan or awareness plan or whatever it is going to be. When are we going to see that rolling out...