R.J. Simpson

Absolutely. This government is all about collaboration and breaking down silos. I have to work with the Housing Corporation, as I've stated before. When we're talking about small businesses, I have to work with ITI. I am absolutely going to do that, and I am going to have to work with the committees of this Assembly, as some of the changes that are being discussed would require legislative changes that would have to go through the committee stage.

I'm trying to build the best relationships I can with all the education leaders in the territory. To that end, I phoned the chair of every DEC or regional authority in the territory when I first took office. I've had conversations with all but one of the members of the board of the French schools. Again, yesterday, I reached out to the chair and I'm setting up a meeting so that we can have a discussion, myself and the board, with no one else in the room, no one from the department, no employees of the board, just the elected officials, to figure out how, as reasonable people, we can come to a...

The money spent on court proceedings pursuant to the 2016 directive is $220,000.

One of the things about this job is there is a lot. There is a lot in ECE. This is something I have an interest in, a personal interest, but I haven't gotten to the level of detail, yet, that I would like to. I appreciate the Member bringing this up. It is going to spur me and my department to look further into this. As for those resources, I will look into that.

I want to say, too, that, in the last Assembly, whenever we had a youth parliament or whenever I engaged with the youth, this was one of the biggest issues they spoke about, the mental health crisis among our youth. We are aware...

I will definitely look into that. We had a conversation about this yesterday. It is a very real issue that students are facing. They become counsellors, peer counsellors, who are dealing with heavy, heavy issues. That weighs on someone. People internalize that, and that becomes an issue for them. I am committed to looking into this.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is part of a broader discussion that we have been having about how we can better use Income Assistance to get people into the workforce or support self-sufficiency. The Member spoke earlier about a laissez-faire approach to business, and some of the concerns around this are, if Income Assistance is paying for rent as well as income while someone is starting a small business, that puts them at advantage over other people who have other expenses, to pay for office space, and things like that.

That being said, the Member makes a very good point. You can't get back on...

If the directive is winding us up in court or is putting us into court proceedings, obviously, it can be improved upon, and I'm very live to this issue. I'm from Hay River, where we have a French first-language school, and I've been looking closely at this file. I'm not looking at a formal review right now, but I am personally reviewing it. I am having conversations. I had a conversation this morning, or rather yesterday morning, about this, and I'm having further conversations.

Right now, we are in the phase where we are strengthening the foundation of the college, so that type of work, while there have been conversations, we have not aggressively been pursuing that, just because of where we are and that we do not have a regional needs assessment done to know what we are going to look like. We do not have our infrastructure assessment done. It is hard to go out and ask for money for a particular project when we do not have a particular project that we can show. That being said, there are the conversations that the Premier had in her former post, and there are other...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. That is what we currently believe. However, I have told the House before and the committees before that this isn't necessarily about getting it done as quickly as possible so we can check boxes. It is about doing it right, and if things need to be pushed back by a season because we are not ready to start a capital project or something like that, or the legislation isn't where it should be, and committee might need more time to look at the legislation, I am willing to make those adjustments to timelines, but as it stands, a lot of work has gone into creating a...

Thank you, Madam Chair, and the Premier is absolutely correct that it is too early to say what we are going to be doing at the polytechnic university, but one thing about universities is that they are willing to put on programming. If the government has money and it wants to fund a program that would help increase healthcare professionals, that is something the college would probably gladly do. Those are the kind of opportunities we will have going forward. Thank you.