R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Madam Chair. So there was definitely consideration given to CSFTNO and the effects of this bill would have on them. And it was our understanding that this bill would have no effect and, in fact, they expressed that they were in a different situation than the other school boards. They're in two communities, and they don't align their elections with either municipality. They have a different way of conducting elections. They don't require the same voters list and enumeration and things like that. But as it turns out, there are regulations that under the Education Act, that reference...

Thank you, Madam Chair. To your right is Mr. Mike Reddy, director of legislative division, Department of Justice. And to our left, making her first appearance in the chamber, Megan Wahlberg, director of policy, legislation and communications for ECE. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here today to present Bill 25, An Act to Amend the Education Act. This bill seeks to amend the Education Act to allow a term of office of four years for elected district education authority trustees in cases where a DEA's community government has a fouryear election cycle.

Currently, only election cycles of two and three years for DEAs are permitted by the Act. The proposed amendment arises from the 2018 change in municipal election cycles in Yellowknife from three to fouryear terms of office for mayor and council.

Bill 25 would allow the two Yellowknife DEAs...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you can imagine, this has been a focus of the department for over a year now and the Public Health Act has been reviewed, other pieces of the relevant legislation, the everevolving case law, Charter of Rights and Freedoms. So, yes, all of these have been reviewed. And, again, this is similar to the "significant risk," the definition, this determination is made by the chief public health officer.

The department does provide advice on the risks associated with specific measures and orders, that is to say the legal risks. But in terms of the risks and what is reasonable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Justice has a division called legal division and that is essentially the GNWT's inhouse law firm, and legal division provides legal advice and services to GNWT departments and entities such as the Office of the chief public health officer. And since the beginning of the pandemic, the legal division has been working with the chief public health officer to provide advice in respect of the drafting of they will suggest wording. There's probably, I'm sure there's been some back and forths to ensure that, you know, the wording is what it should be. With...

Thank you, Madam Chair. This money is long gone; it's out the door.

Laughter

And there are discussions between, you know, our between ECE, people in the regions, people at headquarters and communities who are require infrastructure and so, you know, if a project wasn't successful for whatever reason, there are those conversations that have happened. So that work is definitely being done. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I've spoken with the chair of the CSFTNO and informed him that there exists this issue and that we will reach out as soon as this bill is passed and begin work on amending those regulations. And I've been assured that from the time that those consultations with the CSFTNO are complete, and really the consultation is 'do you want to remain with your threeyear term limit or do you want a fouryear term limit?' Once we're done with that, within two weeks we can have new regulations drafted and likely enforced.

And the reason this wasn't discovered, well, I can take that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. There was extensive consultation with the Yellowknife school boards. I've had numerous conversations with the chairs of those boards as well. As to the question of whether or not they were provided with the proposed language, I will hand it over to Ms. Wahlberg but first I'll note that the consultation with education bodies, and consultation in general I think, is to figure out the what not necessarily the how. And so when it comes down to the particulars of the, you know, the words used in legislation, it's our job as the government to ensure that those words achieve...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 30, An Act to amend the Aurora College Act be read for the second time. This bill amends the Aurora College Act to create a new approach to governance based on the introduction of a competencybased board. The bill also reallocates power from the Minister to the board to allow Aurora College to operate at arm's length from the Minister and limits the role of the Minister in the operations of Aurora College while legislating the role of the Minister and approving the mandate of Aurora College. The bill...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that's the plan. That's the reality. There are intergenerational housing arrangements right now, and as a government we need to ensure that we're serving the people in those arrangements. Again, there's working groups. I work with my Cabinet colleagues on a higher level, and this is the work we want to do. This is the work we have to do. We have to look at the realities on the ground and then design our policy and programs to meet those realities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.