Wendy Bisaro

Thanks to the Minister. I have no further questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple of comments and questions here. I appreciate the need for this bill to come before us, but it is somewhat concerning for me. We have encountered a number of expenditures which have been unforeseen. The fire season expenditure is the biggest one and the one that we were most unable to control. The $20 million for the low water surcharge, that was a conscious decision to undertake that payment, which put us into this situation, partly put us into this situation. The other one that was a conscious decision was accelerating the payments of the Inuvik...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a little hard to be short when the Minister is questioning the value of this analysis. This was a P3 project which went from a P3 project to not a P3 project which was fraught with problems and cost us all kinds of money.

To the Minister: It’s not the value of the bridge itself, it’s looking at the process and the process that broke down and determining why it broke down and what we can do to make it better. Why will he not consider that instead of the value of the bridge? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for his comments. It was on February 13, 2014, when I asked the Minister whether or not the work on the bridge was completed, and his answer: “There is no further outstanding work to complete the bridge.” I’m a little surprised to hear that now there are deficiencies and we can’t start this analysis, this investigation, one that was supposed to be completed almost two years ago now.

To the Minister: He says now we have deficiencies and maybe then we’re going to start this retrospective analysis. When can we expect results from this analysis?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my honour to rise today to recognize and pay tribute to a Yellowknife pioneer, a true Northerner in spirit and action. Barb Bromley passed away on February 15th here in Yellowknife. She’s been described as a pillar of the community, and our community is leaning due to the loss of that pillar.

As we’ve heard, Mrs. Bromley came north in 1948 and never left. Her life’s work was nursing, and as Yellowknife developed and grew, she advanced public health nursing services in Yellowknife and beyond. She was instrumental in starting the NWT Registered Nurses’ Association and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am hearing from residents that are involved in day homes and daycares that I don’t think they’ve heard from the department to provide input into this review.

I would again ask the Minister if he would commit to provide me at a later date a list of the people that have been contacted to provide input into the early childhood program review.

To the Minister: Part of the review, as I understand it, was to look at the review, to review child care costs for parents and to particularly look at the impact that child care has on their cost of living and so on.

I’d like to ask the Minister, is that part of the review that either has gone on or is going on? Will the review be looking at costs of child care for parents? Thank you.

The best would be a licenced facility with required certified early childhood educators and a mandated curriculum, but the NWT has no standards. Day homes do not have to have certified early childhood educators on staff, nor does the Department of ECE require the use of an approved curriculum. That’s not the case in other NWT ECE programs.

As part of the education renewal project, the Department of ECE has advised that the Early Childhood Development Action Plan includes a review of funding and governance for ECD programs. Part of that review is supposed to evaluate child care costs for...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We wish to continue with Tabled Document 188-17(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates 2015-2016. We want to continue with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and, time permitting, Municipal and Community Affairs and the Department of Lands. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for the information on that completion date. I guess since the daycare operators, day home operators were advised that this would be done in October and now the Minister has just said it’s going to be completed in March, I’d like to know why there was a delay. I would also like to know from the Minister if he can provide me with a list of the daycare and day home operators who have been contacted for input into the review.