Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, I’m not hearing anything from that last answer that specifically points to what they’re doing. The Minister said there are so many initiatives. Name clearly one initiative that is engaged with the students to find out what’s important to them to encourage them to proceed towards graduation.

This is such an important thing that our students get a graduation certificate, because their future counts on it. We can only go backwards so far and hope and dream and pray and plead with them that they graduate, but we must get them involved in this solution.

Name one clear thing that the...

The Minister just said he would hope for 80 percent. Well, actually, I hope we have 100 percent graduation rates. Unlike the Minister had just said, I hope that every child has the future and that they work through graduation. You can’t get a job with the military or the RCMP these days that people used to go through with grades 10, 11 and 12. You need a minimum of Grade 12.

The specific question to the Minister of Education is: What incentives are put in through the education program to encourage our youth to fulfil their obligation by getting through the education system and all the way to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for that because this lack of safety trend is quite alarming and it’s not just about one facility, it’s about all our territorial staff. I’m going to quote Minister Abernethy’s comment the other day, “Our staff are the most valuable resources. They are the backbone of our system and we need to ensure that.” I want to make sure that the Minister is very clear on exactly what he’s going to do and when we’re going to do it, because I don’t want to wait for yet another incident to happen for anyone to be standing by and saying I told you so. We...

With this recent trend of incidents at Stanton or even downtown in some of our offices or anywhere else, for that matter, there’s been a bit of a trend. Has this not stimulated the need for this type of discussion to ensure that our employees are safe, and as such, what about the government taking initiative on doing an assessment to ensure our staff are not only safe but have the proper resources at their beck and call as and when necessary?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess Minister Beaulieu and I will share recognition of constituent Cheryl Mandeville who actually lives in Yellowknife Centre but is from Fort Res, so we’ll share the constituent.

As my colleagues Mr. Dolynny, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Moses and Mr. McLeod, I too wish to recognize Malcolm Austin. The Austin family has been going through a terrible challenge and I think they deserve to be recognized for their strength and I admire very much how they’ve come together for this fight. I also recognize how much this community has come together to help support them. I was at the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it’s really important to express how important this issue is, I guess I’d say it that way. This is really a hard, a long path that has finally come to fruition and I am certainly excited to see it happen for the people of the Sahtu. The Deline Self-Government Agreement has my support and my heartfelt congratulations for the many hours, many days, many years that the people have struggled through to bring this together to where it is today.

Their future is in their hands right where it belongs. They will join other governments such as the Tlicho Government who we...

The Minister says it takes a community, but it also takes leadership at the Minister’s office. What is the Minister doing to engage the students to find out what types of incentives they need to be partners in their own future? Not just the parents, not just the district education authorities and not just everybody in the ivory tower at the buildings downtown.

What are the students being talked to and engaged about? What it would take for them to want to graduate? Is the Minister doing that outreach and what is the outreach determining?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question. My question will be to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment just to help build a little further on our theme day for education, Mr. Speaker. First I should say, once again, thank you to the Bureau of Stats for their great assistance in helping me with this question because their details, I couldn’t live without.

In 2012-13 in grades 10 to 12 we had 2,582 students enrolled. However, current details tell us that only 437 students graduated. That’s approximately 50 percent if we just work the math through and...

Again, I appreciate the answer from the Minister, but we’ve got a bit of a trend here where some of our employees, be it at Stanton or at some of the downtown offices, and not only recently but there has been over a number of months in a couple of years that the staff have been in jeopardy or some type of peril because of these types of incidents. Rather than waiting for the occupational health and safety committee to make its recommendation or even to meet for goodness sakes, what proactive approach is the Minister of Human Resources doing and directing through policy to ensure our employees...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the GNWT willing to put, sort of, money where their mouth is and start to make a commitment to the engineering and the environmental assessment on this particular project so we are able to get this off the ground so when the federal government does get off and make a decision and finally agree that this is an important highway to connect people and families and certainly put industry together and create a window of opportunity for people to go to work?

Is the GNWT placed in order to be able to respond in a timely way to these important things? Thank you.