Wendy Bisaro

To the Minister, I am not saying that junior kindergarten is not a good program and I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be implemented. What I am saying is we have eight Aboriginal Head Start programs in eight communities in the NWT. The impression that is being given to both school boards and to the Aboriginal Head Start Council, from my understanding, is that junior kindergarten will be in the schools. The four-year-olds will go to school; the four-year-olds will not go to any other programming. This is not daycare, Mr. Speaker. This is a preschool play program and it is an extremely valuable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to follow up on some questions that were asked earlier in the week by my colleagues from Hay River, particularly Mr. Bouchard, who spoke about some of the potential impacts on junior kindergarten, sorry, the impacts of junior kindergarten on other preschool programs. In both Hay River and Yellowknife, we have viable preschool programs and the one I want to specifically refer to is the Aboriginal Head Start program. The Junior Kindergarten Program is going to have a huge impact on...

Thanks to Mr. Fulford. That was much easier. I’m just looking at Section 17 here and it seems to me that under Section 17(2), the Minister can waive the requirement for the approval in respect of work or activity. I think that’s the one. Under what circumstances would the Minister waive authorization of work, I guess?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of questions here. I’m trying to understand some of the implications, I think, of the wording in the act. I’d like to start with the change of language from the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to the NWT act and the change from the Canada act to the NWT act is that the National Energy Board is the regulator for the Canadian act, or the federal act, and then in the territorial legislation anywhere where NEB is referenced, it’s changed to the regulator and we know that that regulator is the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Investment. Within the Inuvialuit...

Mr. Chair, I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question has to do with the Premier’s opening remarks. In the very last paragraph he says, “The Oil and Gas Operations Act also empowers the Minister to approve a benefits plan or waive the requirement for such approval.” I have no idea what a benefits plan is. Can I get an explanation please?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, March 13, 2014, I will move the following motion. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that, notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on March 13, 2014, it shall be adjourned until Wednesday May 28, 2014; and further, that any time prior to May 28, 2014, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon...

Thanks to Mr. Goldney. I guess I just have to reiterate that expectations can be ignored, and albeit this is an agreement between governments, but these governments are making decisions on behalf of residents of the Northwest Territories and they certainly can affect residents of the NWT in terms of the way that lands and resources are managed. I think that it should be a requirement of the council to do some sort of a report. I appreciate recommendations maybe to each other within the council, but those recommendations are going to have an impact on us as residents, and I would recommend that...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks, Mr. Druyan. So it may be the way that I interpreted this statement. Maybe it means that all of the amendments that we’re dealing with here are legally necessary. It says, finally, it makes legislative amendments, so I assumed that there was some more.

I wanted to visit the amendments to both the Human Rights Act and the Public Service Act that Mr. Druyan has already mentioned. From what I understand, it references differences in pay between people who perform the same or substantially similar work, so it sounds to me like we are allowing for differences in pay...

Thanks to the Minister. In the discussions with Cabinet, again, I want to try and get some sort of a timeline. Can the Minister give me any idea if Cabinet decides to go ahead and put these two schools into the capital planning process, when might we expect construction to start on one or both of these schools?