Wendy Bisaro

Mr. Chair, thanks to the Minister. I wanted to ask, within this section there are two funds which I don’t know whether or not it’s included here. One of them is the Mine Training Society and the other one is Skills Canada. I can’t find, within this section, where either of those organizations’ contributions are listed. Can I get some clarification? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, thanks to the director. That’s helpful.

In terms of culture and heritage, I know I suggested to the Minister, in my statement last week, that we could give a higher profile to heritage than we do. We have a Minister’s Cultural Circle, but I’d like to ask the Minister specifically whether or not he would entertain a name change to those awards, if he would call it the Minister’s Cultural and Heritage Circle, just adding the word “heritage” in there. Thank you.

Thanks for the information. So if our enrolments have gone down, I note that the total funding to schools has actually gone up by about $1 million. If enrolments are down, we have fewer staff from one year to the next, why is the budget going up?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The current GNWT directive on inclusive schooling states the following: “Inclusive schooling is intended to ensure equal access for all students to educational programs offered in regular classroom settings.” This very statement is symbolic of what is wrong with how inclusive schooling in the NWT is currently being funded and addressed at the department level.

It is time to revisit and redefine the directive and the funding formula for inclusive schooling. We must consider this, also from the ECE directive, “What inclusion is not:

It does not mean having all students...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a couple of questions about ALBE as well. I noted from the Minister’s opening remarks that he said the department will action recommendations from the Adult Literacy and Basic Education review. I wondered if the Minister could elaborate on what recommendations will be acted on and what programs will be changed. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, okay, I think it’s as clear as mud. So really the $1.4 million more in this year’s estimates is a bit of smoke and mirrors. Really the addition is whatever number Mr. Devitt just gave me, which has gone out of my head already.

I’d like to know from the Minister, with looking at this $1.4 million that the Minister says is like new money, how are we using the $1 million that has been carried over from the 2012-13 revised mains. The money that the committee added to the budget last year, the $1 million or $1.25 million, how is that being used in this budget? Is it being used in the same...

Mr. Chair, I wanted to ask a question, as well, in this section under the Student Financial Assistance funding. I note that it goes up almost $2 million between the revised estimates and the main estimates for this year. I think the House approved an increase in funding for Student Financial Assistance because we’re getting more students asking for assistance, which is a good thing. It means more kids are going off to post-secondary. Does this increase in funding allow for students taking upgrades to get student financial assistance from the department? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have to go back to my issue with heritage and projects. Maybe it’s just the way that it’s written, but if I look on page 10-20, the NWT Arts Council gives contributions to artists and cultural groups – okay, that might include heritage – but then it goes on to say to encourage creative artistic projects in visual literary performing and new media arts in the NWT. I would think that a heritage organization is not likely to want to do a creative artistic project.

I again would have to stress to the Minister that I don’t see much opportunity in here for a heritage...

Mr. Chair, I don’t think I quite understood that. If we are comparing mains to mains, we had the mains for 2012-13 that were a dollar, say. We have the mains for 2013-14 that are $1.4 million plus one dollar more, so we added after the revised mains from 2012-13 were $1.25 million bigger, from what I understand. Can I get that clarified? Are the revised mains numbers from 2012-13 $1.25 million at least higher in terms of education than the 2012-13 mains for education? Thank you.

I wasn’t asking for the Auditor General’s recommendations. Normally, when somebody is looking at things and you are looking at what they are looking at, oftentimes things jump out at you. I just wondered whether or not the department had, at this point, recognized that they have some deficiencies on their own without the Auditor General having to tell them that.

I wanted to ask a question with regard to the amount of money at the bottom of page 10-27 that talks to program delivery details. The amount of money for income assistance programs actually is going down this year, ’13-14, as compared...