Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Madam Chair. We would like to deal with Bill 24 today.

I totally agree. This policy has been revised for a very long period of time, so I’m glad that we are moving forward on the whole policy but specifically on this one section.

I’m still a bit confused when the Minister references a Cabinet policy. I’m not sure if that is a policy that stays just within Cabinet. When policies are developed, they are generally made public. So when he talks about a Cabinet policy, is this a policy that will be public afterwards and he is simply calling it a Cabinet policy because it’s not approved? I’m a little confused there. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to try and get some clarification from the Minister of Health and Social Services with regards to some answers he gave to MLA Blake two days ago in regards to the Medical Travel Policy and escorts. In his answer to Mr. Blake, the Minister stated that there was going to be an RFP put out to deal with an escort policy. I believe that’s what I heard. Hansard doesn’t really clarify it for me. From Hansard, the Minister stated, “I’m hoping to have that Cabinet policy to Cabinet and then to Standing Committee on Social Programs in July.”...

I’m very glad to hear that new funding may be on the horizon, but if these initiatives are being implemented in the ‘14-15 school year, the budget for that school year is already over and done, and I am not convinced that we are going to get new money.

I spoke a bit about contingencies for school boards in my statement. Yesterday the Minister, when he was talking about contingencies, stated that, “those monies should be expended into educational programming, so we support that as well.” I am very pleased to hear that the Minister supports spending contingency money on educational programming...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up from my statement and ask some questions of the Education, Culture and Employment Minister about the Education Renewal and Innovation Project and how it’s going to be funded.

I recently received a letter from the Minister responding to questions that I raised in March of this year about the Education Renewal and Innovation Project. In that letter it indicates 10 initiatives from the ERI plan, well, actually 11 if you consider Junior Kindergarten, but the 10 initiatives are set to start in the 2014-15 school year. However, in the letter there was...

Why are we seeing the outright denial of any assistance to cover the extra pension costs? Don’t all NWT teachers deserve the same standard of pension benefits? Apparently not, according to the Minister.

Yellowknife school boards are being unfairly targeted by Education, Culture and Employment through funding cuts and denials of applications for extraordinary funding. Just because they have taxation capability is no reason not to treat them equitably with all other NWT school authorities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move we report progress.

---Carried

My next question is similar to Mr. Dolynny’s in looking at the cash amount, but I guess if you can’t tell me the percentage, you probably can’t tell me the amount of dollars. I’m looking to know whether or not the dollar amount that we are forgiving and/or that we are losing through defaulted loans is going up or down over time.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I have similar concerns to my colleague Mr. Dolynny. I also wondered about why we needed the increase, and I appreciate the answer. I do have questions around the amounts, similar to Mr. Dolynny.

We’ve talked about a default rate, I think defaulting on loans rate, and we’ve talked about a remission rate. My question is not so much the dollar amount but a trend.

Has the percentage of remission and defaulting on loans gone up or gone down over the last number of years? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The department provides funding to eight district education authorities in the NWT according to a predetermined formula. Elementary and secondary school contributions are provided to education authorities based on government priorities and education needs. This funding framework plays a pivotal role in directing and supporting education councils to achieve education objectives. School contributions are calculated based on enrolment and to cover annual operating and maintenance costs.

Provide a...