R.J. Simpson

It doesn't matter if I support them or not. They have the right to do that. I just want to let everyone know that this is a very serious concern. I take this very seriously, as do all the Cabinet Ministers. This has been our lives for the last little while, now. This is what we're focused on, is making preparations for this. There are a lot of concerns about blanket closures of schools. It can't be overstated, the types of socioeconomic impacts that closing a school can have on a community. There are childcare concerns. It would mean people would have to stay home from work. Some of those...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to reiterate some of the comments that were made by my Cabinet colleagues here, and I will be voting against this motion. Part of my responsibilities as the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment is the Income Assistance program. There has been a lot of discussion in this House recently about the Income Assistance program, and particularly about how we can better help those who are Income Assistance clients, how we can help them become self-sufficient. To that end, I've been looking at how we can reform those programs to help make people more self...

Monsieur le President, I am proud to celebrate the francophone community of the Northwest Territories during the 22nd Annual Rendez-vous de la Francophonie. This nationwide

initiative, held every March, is an opportunity for Canada's 9.5 million French speakers to promote the French language and celebrate the many ways it is expressed throughout the country.

The Rendez-vous encourages us to celebrate the strength in our diversity and cooperatively address the challenges we face as a territory. This year's theme of "Au centre d'un changement" is especially relevant as we begin the work to achieve...

There is a plan. There is an action plan. I can get the Member more information. Just to let you know, the department is very supportive of this. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year, the GNWT provided $20.4 million for Indigenous language education initiatives, and 5.9 of that was federally funded. The vast majority of that comes from the territorial government. A quarter of the funding was distributed directly to regional Indigenous governments for language revitalization initiatives; $9 million was committed to implementing NWT action plan that I spoke of earlier; and $11.6 million was allocated to...

I don't believe there are target numbers. It's a difficult area to create those sort of metrics for. There is money that flows through ECE directly to Indigenous governments, and they are free to do what they wish with it. They use it for language training, all sorts of different events. We don't have control over what targets they might set. We do have our action plan to help revitalize languages. In that, we lay out a number of steps we want to take to help get to that point.

That is something we're looking at. CALM has been around since I was in high school, and, frankly, there has always been talk that it could be done better, and I've heard that very recently, as well. So, for decades now, there have been desires to make it more relevant and, with our proposed pathways to education that the department is looking at, there are proposals to change what we now know as CALM, which is a three-credit course, to a series of one-credit courses, including financial literacy, 10 and 12; mental health and healthy relationships, 10; adult and child development. In addition...

We have the one position that I just mentioned that is specifically dedicated to that. However, we do have hundreds of teachers in the territory, many of whom teach art courses.

I appreciate that suggestion, and it's always good to have information, so I will commit to work with my colleague to see if we can have a more direct line with the DEA so that they have that information. Because, like I said, they do have the authority to close schools, and so we want to make sure that they are exercising their authority with the best possible information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That is what is being worked on as we speak. Those are the kinds of plans that we're putting in place. There were protocols in place for the H1N1 outbreak years back. Those are being updated. I know the elders are especially vulnerable. I can't speak for the Chief Public Health Officer, and I'm not going to give medical advice, but I would imagine he would want elders to stay away from places where they could contract this virus.

All of the work is being done. This has been a very fast-moving situation, and nothing is off the table right now. Looking forward, I'm willing to take whatever steps...

I can't overreach my legislative authority. Education is delivered by the education councils. That's one of the reasons why I'm looking at reforming the Education Act so that, perhaps, if this happens again, I would be able to stand up here and say I have the authority to do some of these things that the Member is asking.