R.J. Simpson

Thank you. I am very familiar with this. I have had constituent businesses who have brought this issue to my attention time and time again, and I have had discussions with the department about what we can do to address this issue. Questions earlier in the House today reminded me of this. You know, dental hygienists can't perform their work because there are no dentists around. Similarly, apprentices can't get their hours and can't move to journeypersons because there are no journeypersons around. We have discussed some different approaches, and, in the mandate, we have an item in there that...

Thank you. Yes, that can be shared with standing committee. I think it likely has to be shared with the Cabinet, but not for decision, prior to going to standing committee, but I have no problem doing that. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a line that says "inclusive schooling," but that doesn't mean that all of our efforts related to inclusive schooling are contained in that line item. We talked about the child and youth care counsellors; we talked about the territorial support team; what we're doing with education renewal and innovation. All of that is related to this idea of inclusive schooling. As well, the mandate talks about renewing the Education Act, doing work to review inclusive schooling and address some of the issues that have emerged over the years. Virtually everything we do in education in the...

Thank you. Absolutely. This has become vital. I think the feds see a need for it, and I can't speak for them. I can't say if it is entrenched. We could have a new government, and they could get drastically slashed. When I speak with the appropriate ministers, I will definitely be speaking to the value of this. Thank you.

Thank you, and I appreciate the Member's comments. Just this upcoming weekend is the K'amba Carnival in Hay River, so we talk about culture and language and arts, and it's very close to home. I appreciate the Member's comments, and I would love to see increases across the board in all of the great things that we do. We'll have those discussions over the next year about how we're going to allocate our funds. Thank you.

Thank you. The territorial support team does go into the communities. They don't travel there on a regular basis. There are referrals. Based on those referrals, I believe there's been 42 in the last year, so there's been nine from the Beaufort Delta; there's been four in the Sahtu; the Deh Cho, Tlicho. They've been all over the entire territory. The largest number is in Yellowknife, but that's just because of the size of the population, but they do travel to every region. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to hand this over to Mr. Saturnino who can, perhaps, provide a bit more detail. Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you to the Member for the comment. With such a large department, with such a large budget, an increase that would be a large percentage in another department might not show up as such a large increase here, but I appreciate the Member's support for education and advancing the priorities of the Assembly. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. No, we haven't done that work. This is particularly a team to support the principals, teachers, program support teachers. It's an interesting thought, and we can look into it, but we haven't done that to date. Thank you.

Thank you. I think this would likely be more of a repeal-and-replace than a few amendments here and there. One of the main considerations is the fact that the Member just referenced that we need a piece of legislation that allows Indigenous governments to devolve the authorities that they have that our legislation currently doesn't allow. Thank you.