R.J. Simpson

Abstain.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So currently there is nothing on the books to build a new permanent facility at Ecole Boreale. As the MLA, I advocated for, you know, that in the past, advocated for a gym, advocating for all of these issues as the Member is doing now. Unfortunately, there was a decision made, you know, 15 years ago that we are now dealing with. It would have been great if they had just built a permanent building at that point. But now we're at the point where we have many schools that are in need of repair. There's 49 schools in the territory, you know, over 50 years old some of them...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I agree, students need a place to learn that is supportive of that learning. And in a supportive learning environment, staff need a safe supportive workplace as well. And so as soon as we learned about this, we started working with the Department of Infrastructure, and there will be a permanent fix in place over the summer. So in the next school year, it will no longer be an issue. It would be great if we could fix this issue before the summer, fix it now, but it's a very disruptive process. I believe it involves digging up the parking lot and, you know, the smell...

Mr. Speaker, as another school year comes to a close for students across the Northwest Territories, I would like to recognize this year’s graduates. Whether they are graduating from kindergarten, high school, or a postsecondary institution like Aurora College, the territory’s graduates have a lot to be proud of.

Applause

The pandemic has created unprecedented disruptions in every sector of society. The last two years have posed great challenges for residents, with the impacts of COVID19 taking an emotional, mental and physical toll on the health and wellbeing of NWT residents, communities...

Favour.

In favour.

In favour.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I also want to recognize my former colleague, former Premier Bob McLeod. And now being on this side of the House as a Minister, I also want to apologize to the Member, former Premier; I'm getting my comeuppance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And there have been concerns about the classrooms being too hot in the late spring/early summer. As a result, Infrastructure has installed portable air conditioners. There isn't a plan to connect the portable building to the main air handling unit but we do have the portable air conditioners in place. And I will say that, you know, this issue brought to light the fact there needs to be a little better communication. So I've reached out or I've had conversations with the president of the CSFTNO, the French language school board, and I've had conversations with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also received dozens and dozens of emails from students, staff, parents, perhaps other people in the community who were concerned about this issue, and I appreciate those emails because it brought it to my attention.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment became aware of this issue just prior to the flooding in Hay River, and that was really the first time that we knew about it.

So the issue that we've learned, in consultation with the Department of Infrastructure, is that there have been ongoing sewage backup issues. This goes back to the original issue...