Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few comments in regard to the MACA budget in general and the Minister’s opening remarks. I want to echo Mr. Bromley’s comment right off the top about the increase, the 6 percent increase in budget from last year’s main estimates. I say this quite often, our budgets constantly go up, we never seem to get any new revenue and we, at some point, are going to find ourselves very deep in a hole. I expect that a lot of this increase is probably the result or maybe some of it may be the result of the negotiated contracts that were finalized over these last few months...

Thanks to the Minister for that. That’s really encouraging. That’s an area that requires some activity and it’s great to see that the communities are taking an interest and are taking over the responsibility for that kind of housing. My concern is what there is going to be ongoing. If this is going to be one-time funding and there’s no funding in this next 2010-2011 budget for housing for staff, how does the Minister expect that this initiative will be kept alive and that we will be able to involve other communities beyond the 16 that are currently involved?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions here. I noted when we discussed the business plan in the fall that there was a deletion of the funding that was intended for housing for staff. I understand that it’s been moved to another department. I wonder if I can get confirmation of that. Does Housing have any idea of what this other department is going to do with that funding?

Thank you. I appreciate that the Minister has made a commitment to gather facts, but I think the problem is that he’s gathering facts based from a very subjective viewpoint. Each individual education authority, I believe, is being asked to provide this information and the point of YK1 is that we need to have an independent study, there needs to be an impartial gathering of the number of high needs students in each jurisdiction. So I guess with the suggestion from YK1 to do an impartial gathering of data to get at the actual facts, will the Minister consider doing that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education. When we reviewed the Department of Education budget I asked a number of questions of the Minister and his officials with regard to inclusive schooling and how we fund inclusive schooling to our education authorities and I have a few more questions for him following up on my Member’s statement.

The Minister was presented with evidence from Yellowknife Education District No. 1 about a year ago, of a high number of severe special needs students within that district. I’d like to ask the Minister what his response...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some years ago the government introduced an Inclusive Schooling Policy. Over the years it’s become accepted practice for our schools to include every child in the classroom, no matter their mental or physical capability. Students in our schools who are special needs students range from those with minimal needs to those with very severe needs. Of these, according to a Canadian average, about 5 percent of these have severe needs for many different reasons. These children cannot manage in a classroom on their own and require a full-time aide to assist them every moment...

Thanks to the Minister. The document that I’m looking at showed only 300 vacancies in the Territory. So if it’s gone up to 500 across the Territory, that’s not good. Yellowknife has gone a bit, but the whole Territory has gone up a lot. So that’s not progress, in my mind.

I had one other question. The corporation was working with local housing organizations to provide them with some training and to provide them with some assistance in terms of operating more efficiently and collecting more of their arrears and they’re working on rent collections and so on and I just wondered, you know, as to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask a question here. A while ago we were given some information with regard to, well, actually it’s a tabled document; Public Housing Vacancy Status. I noted in Yellowknife we have a wait list of, actually, this is February 15, 2009, there are 141 people or families waiting for a unit within a total complement of 293 public housing units. That’s 150 percent units are required or 50 percent of the possible units are on a wait list. I just wondered from a corporation perspective what they can do to assist the Yellowknife Housing Authority to try and...

So to put words in the Minister’s mouth, there is going to be money available if people need it. I’m just kidding.

The other question I had related to arrears and debts and mortgage collections by housing authorities, we discussed this, as well, at business plan time. We were advised that things were improving at that point. The corporation is giving a certain amount of leeway to the local housing organizations and letting them collect as much as possible and then things get turned over to the corporation to kind of go a little further. I’m just wondering if I can get an update from the...

Thanks to the Minister for that. I guess it begs the question, what activities are ongoing to create housing for staff in small communities?