Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was announced by the Minister of Health and Social Services last week and we are now in the middle of the 6th annual Drop the Pop campaign.

Last year 84 percent of our schools enthusiastically took part in the program. Ecole William McDonald School in Frame Lake had planned to drop a fake pop machine off the roof of the school to prove that they had moved pop out of the school, but insurance concerns intervened and they had to cancel the event, much to the dismay of the students, I’m sure.

But it is time to expand the Drop the Pop campaign to include energy drinks, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, it was a little difficult to hear you. I have a couple of questions here. The first one has to do with the numbers on page 10-17 for education operations and development. That’s gone down considerably, from about $3.5 million to $2.6 million or so. Can I get an explanation as to why?

I have one last question; I believe it belongs on this page. The Auditor General’s report on education referenced a number of things, but one of the things that I think was fairly strong in her report was that the department needed to do more in terms of data accumulation and program evaluation. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not that recommendation from the Auditor General was taken into consideration with the development of this budget. How much is being spent on this particular area within the department? Has there been an increase in the funds apportioned to data...

Thanks for the explanation. It creates another question. Where do the other costs, the other $200,000 in fees and payments show up? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that there is lots of work to be done. I appreciate that there are different priorities. I am just having trouble understanding how the establishment of libraries in communities is going to assist our students in school to achieve success. Can I have an explanation from the Minister as to how that is going to happen? Thank you.

I guess I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit to provide that information. I’d like to know what it’s costing us to do this. If there are savings, where are the savings coming from and how do we get to cost neutral and/or actually gain some money? If he could commit to that, thank you.

Just one last question, I guess. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not there was an evaluation done of this particular program that Food First Foundation was running. If the money is not going to Food First Foundation but it is going into the schools, what’s to guarantee that they’re going to use it for the same sort of program that Food First Foundation was running? Are we taking a program... If there was an evaluation done and it proved that the program was working well, why are we cancelling it?

I just again have to say that I think we’re missing the boat. The Minister mentioned...

Thanks for the response. So then, when we transfer school bandwidth totally way from GNWT, what kind of money are we looking at? Thank you.

That’s rather distressing if this foundation is not going to receive any further funding. The Food First Foundation has received rave reviews from our schools. They have been doing excellent education work in terms of teaching the kids about healthy foods, what they should be eating, what they should not be eating. They’ve been providing foods in the schools and I think they’ve also been providing some education to our staff, as well, to help them to continue with that sort of education and awareness.

To the Minister: what is the department going to do to replace that work that the Food First...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question -- I hope it belongs here -- with regard to bandwidth and provision for bandwidth within the department, at the schools and so on. My understanding is that ECE is working its way out of the GNWT IT system, in terms of provision of bandwidth anyway, and are going to be sort of having their own portal, for lack of a better way of describing it. I’d like to know where that project is at and what kind of cost is being incurred by the department for this kind of moving away from the total government IT. Thank you.