Wendy Bisaro

That’s good.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the deputy minister for her comments. I want to say that I am a little concerned that safe schools and anti-bullying are mentioned in the same breath and they seem to have the same focus. For me, safe schools or a safe schools plan or policy encompasses far more than just anti-bullying. In my mind, it should look at safe schools in terms of students, the safety of the students. It should look at the safety of the teachers and it should look at the safety of other staff within the school. Bullying is one aspect, but there certainly are other things which happen...

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Is committee agreed?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I need to ask here under this small community employment contribution, it’s gone down significantly from $339,000 to $160,000. Can I ask why?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll just speak briefly to the motion. We have had a lot of discussion about inclusive schooling, and I think one of the things that this motion tries to address is that the current Inclusive Schooling funding does not work. Providing a percentage of funding according to population to schools is not recognizing that there are certain schools and/or certain authorities who have a higher need for funding for special needs students. It’s been suggested that maybe the funding should follow the student, and I’m not so sure that that’s the exact way to go, but certainly we need...

Mr. Chair, I don’t believe we have a quorum.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

For fiscal year 2012-2013, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment re-profiled $1 million from the Inclusive Schooling budget to Early Childhood Development initiatives.

Immediately following year end for fiscal year 2012-2013 March 31, 2013, I ask that the Minister provide a list of actual expenditures for that same $1 million.

Thanks. So I guess I have to read the sentence and ask for an explanation because I don’t understand. The Minister’s remarks said savings realized by PWS from closing the existing units will be used to fund $469,000 of the $898,000 increase to the department’s main estimates. Is that maybe referencing PWS as opposed to ECE? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that update. That’s good to hear. I know there are difficulties with dealing with the federal law, so I’m glad to hear that it’s on the radar and hopefully it will happen in the next couple of years.

I wanted to ask the Minister a question about inclusive schooling. It’s been a hot topic in the last couple of weeks, but in the Minister’s opening remarks he spoke to the department is working with education authorities to improve the delivery of student supports provided under the Inclusive Schooling program, and at the end of the paragraph he said it will help us build...

Thanks to the deputy minister. I’m struggling to understand why we would offer a program that doesn’t really provide us with the qualified people that we are looking for to run our early childhood development programs, so I’ll leave that as a statement. Can I be advised when the decision will be made whether or not to go ahead with a higher quality program in the fall?