Wendy Bisaro

I appreciate the Minister’s commitment. I’d like to ask the Minister, I’m well aware that one of the boards in Yellowknife, Yellowknife Education District No. 1, has a very involved Safe Schools Policy. It could be used as a template for all the rest of the schools within the territory. I’d like to ask the Minister if the department would consider taking the YK No. 1 Safe Schools Policy and sending it to all the schools within the territory and encouraging them to develop their own policy from this template.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple of questions here. The Minister mentioned that some of the increase in this budget is because we’ve added new facilities to our total numbers of facilities, and that the O and M operational costs of these facilities are increasing the bottom line for the budget. I wondered if the Minister could advise which buildings he’s referencing when he says that we’ve added buildings to our stable of facilities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister for Education, Culture and Employment. In February of this year I asked some questions of the Minister with regard to a safe schools policy for all of the schools within the NWT and the Minister responded. Thank you very much to the Minister. I did get a letter which pretty much told me that all schools have an emergency response plan in place. But I was not referencing an emergency response plan, which is like a lockdown if we have a shooter in the school, or a bomb threat or so on. I’m referencing a safe schools policy which...

Thanks to the Minister. Three hundred sounds like a lot, but I can appreciate with some…

---Interjection

That just leads me right into another failing of the Residential Tenancies Act, and that’s the powers of the rental officer. The rental officer, at this point, cannot make any decision that is binding.

I’d like to ask the Minister, if I have had a 15 percent rent increase for three years running and I appeal to the rental officer, what exists for me to make sure that my landlord is not going to give me another 15 percent increase in the following year?

Thanks to the Minister. I guess I would encourage the Minister and the department to seriously consider a formal evaluation after about a year. That will be the end of this particular calendar year, from the sounds of things.

I appreciate that you are collecting data all of the time, but collection of data is not necessarily doing an evaluation of how well you are succeeding with the policy. Just to comment, Mr. Chair, but I would encourage the department to not wait two years to find out whether or not we are doing the right thing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Justice. I talked in my statement about rent controls or the lack of and the impact that rent increases are having on constituents, particularly in the market communities and particularly here in Yellowknife. Without a rent ceiling, many residents have been finding it extremely difficult to find the rent that’s needed every month. Our cost of living is always going up and rent is a huge part of that. I would like to know from the Minister, he’s a new Minister to this department, and I’d like to know from him when this issue...

That’s good to hear and I look forward to seeing those results as do many people, I think.

We’ve had, over the last year or two, some changes within the department in and around the issue of duty to accommodate. I believe we have a duty to accommodate an officer now, and I think we also have a policy. It’s been in place, I think – the Minister can advise me – but I think about a year. I’d like to know whether or not there’s been any evaluation of the position and/or the policy and the affect that it’s having on our employees. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of questions here. I’d like to at the outset, though, to say that I was very pleased to see that three negotiations which were entered into in the last several months were settled in short order and that basically everybody on both sides is happy. Kudos to the department for that.

A couple of questions with regard to, well, I’ll start with the UNW agreement and the statement that there will be interim whistle-blower phrasing, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it. I’d like to know from the Minister or from the department when they expect that...

No. Thank you, Madam Chair.