Robert Hawkins

The Minister keeps pointing at the Aboriginal Student Initiative but it doesn’t fund non-Aboriginal students. I’m referring to junior kindergarten for all students. I see them as all students that we should give a good chance to at the beginning of their early education years. Does the Minister, in his leadership of the Department of ECE, see a way that all students could be funded under this initiative, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about early childhood education. UNESCO says early childhood education is defined by the years of birth to eight years old. They believe that it makes a remarkable difference on the brain development of young people if early education is offered early in the beginning of school years, before the traditional time of grades 1 to 4.

I would like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what his government and department can do to help support schools that wish to offer junior education programs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to speak about the importance of early education and how I believe that ECE should support junior kindergarten in our future years.

The GNWT has two strategic initiatives in this area. One provides funding for the languages initiatives that supports local language programming for preschool children and the second provides some assistance to regions to assist early childhood providers. In Yellowknife, preschool programs and preschool bilingual programs are offered on a fee base. There is also a program at the Yellowknife Catholic Schools for children...

In the last, we’ll say, five years, how many mortgages have been under the scrutiny of legal action to pay? Thank you.

How long is the collection rate for mortgages been at 40 percent and the rental rate collection at 76 percent? How long has that been? Thank you.

Does the department have a policy on the threshold that defines what’s considered to be a reasonable rate of return or I should say a reasonable rate of collection? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under corporate summary I’m going to strive for a policy-type question but it obviously will get into the areas of specifics that are further along. My concern is about collections and policy. Is the Minister able to provide some information which is what is the collection rate at the departmental level of the corporation level, sorry, on mortgage rates and, of course, rental rates? What is the collection rate? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister able to point towards any specific statistic that shows and demonstrates that our terrible average of being on the national worst list of abuse against women is coming down? Is she able to point specifically at any numbers or statistics that definitely define us as working towards that goal of ending violence against women? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be able to highlight some of the resources they have committed directly to the V-Day North campaign or any other campaign that has gotten out there to stop the violence against women? Thank you.

Is the Minister able to inform us as to what those 50 outstanding mortgages that it sounds like they are pursuing legal action on, the value of those particular mortgages once we foreclose and put those up for sale? Thank you.