Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a father, the health and safety of my kids is my foremost responsibility. So when I learned, along with other members of our community and this House, that high levels of lead were found in Yellowknife's schools, I was shocked. It was hard to believe that somehow staff and students of William MacDonald and Range Lake school -- the Range Lake North School were unknowingly consuming potentially dangerous high levels of lead for an unknown period of time. This was relayed to me by many of my constituents and staff and faculty at those schools. During these revelations, a third school, MJ McPherson, was initially reported to have only minor, unresolved issues, which gave parents and staff a sense of reassurance that the school was not at risk. But, as we later learned, that confidence was based on flawed assumptions.
Months later, when the Minister released an independent report on the elevated lead levels, it became clear that concerns about school drinking water that had been first flagged as early as January and that the initial testing had been flawed, as a result, testing at William MacDonald and Range Lake north continued well into April, long-before parents and staff were informed in May.
Concerns about the methodology of the drinking water tests prompted another round of testing this summer, and it was only then that we finally learned about elevated levels of lead at MJ McPherson were, indeed, above the Health Canada guidelines, directly contradicting early assurances that the high readings were false positives.
Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, the parent downplaying of the concerns at MJ McPherson and delaying of that retesting until the summer postponed the necessary measures to protect students and staff longer than they should have. In the -- because we had those measures, the mitigation measures -- remediation measures public health orders at Range Lake north and William MacDonald during the same period of time. Parents must be able to trust that their children are safe at school. It's a fundamental principle of the education system. When the Minister released a report and accept the responsibility in July, the scale of the mismanagement on such a critical issue, the health of children, needs more reassurance from this government. We know remediation processes have been put in place. Now we need to know how serious this Minister is that this never happens again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Members' statements. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
