R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So in the Public Health Act, a public health emergency is defined as something that presents a significant risk to public health, and determining whether there's a significant risk to public health is the determination of the CPHO. The Department of Justice's lawyers do what they can but ultimately, they are not medical professionals and there's a lot of science involved in determining risk and so ultimately they of course have to defer to the chief public health officer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Under the income assistance regulations, the director has discretion to allocate an emergency allowance in situations that are deemed an emergency. So this onetime emergency allowance has been allocated to income assistance clients in Fort Simpson, in Fort Good Hope, and  or rather in zones 1, 2, 3, to Fort Good Hope and other affected residents. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I appreciate the Member's comments.

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, Mr. Speaker. Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As what the Member was asking about teaching life schools in school, and I don't have specific information about a life skills initiative but I can talk a bit about what is done in schools in a broad sense, understanding that what happens in the school is highly dependant on the DEA, the community, and the teachers at that time. And there could be a lot of variation and there could be heavy focus on life stills depending on those influences. So in schools of course we have the courses like career/life management that people are familiar with.

We also have courses like...