Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the activity education and culture under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Main Estimates 2017-2018 on page 34 at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for that answer. I guess I'm a little concerned, though, that we are going to a see an influx of approximately 1,200 students in junior kindergarten, and we are going to see a reduction into this area here; specifically, for my junior kindergarten to grade four classes that are in the small schools. Has the department looked at that, and how inclusive schooling will, in fact, impact the whole classroom? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister again for his response. I am a little disappointed that we are not getting a number. Again, I don't want this to be a salary subsidy program. I want a partnership. I want to be able to give the communities the money so that they can actually employ people and get them to work and provide training so they become a better, skilled workforce. Is the department really looking at this to become a job creation or just a subsidy program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister and Ms. Haener for her answer. So just to clarify again, this Healthy Children's Initiative, all it was is the money has moved up and that's where it was before in the development of this mains? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for his answer. Can he clarify what he means by the department is doing it, or the DEAs are doing it, or the school boards are doing it? Because I am looking at a fact sheet here, and it says that the DECs are the ones in charge of putting the funding and utilizing the funding where they see fit, and now I'm hearing the department is taking a role in this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am assuming that was a commitment to work with the Finance Minister and try to line it up to where it is. I appreciate the answer. I guess going back to small community employment, when you talked about there were 200 jobs which are salary subsidy, 69 formal training, but again it comes back to my question previously: we have 3,900 people who are on income support and we only see a small increase. Will the Minister look at these facts and information and see that we have a glowing arrow -- not an arrow, but people are stuck having to go to income support to survive in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for his answer. Once they've come up with the process, is he willing to share with us, the Regular MLAs? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will try to just keep mine specific so we can get moving on this. I will try not to take the 10 minutes. I guess my first one is that I would have to agree with my colleague who just previously spoke about communication. This is probably the biggest challenge that we are facing out there, is the messaging and how we get that messaging to the general public, because there is a lot of miscommunication out there. I say we, collectively, are doing a bad job because we are not getting the information or asking for the proper information and getting it out there to the people...

I thank the Minister for his answer. However, with decentralization today and the modernization of computers we can do things, and right now we've seen positions out there that actually are pan-territorial. So will the Minister re-evaluate this decision and actually put a position, which makes sense in the South Slave, into Hay River?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for his answer. It is still a little confusing here, though. We don't have a store in two of my communities, so the food basket is in, I would assume, Hay River or Fort Simpson, which, depending on the community and depending on the season, is either an hourandahalf ride to Fort Simpson or a fourandahalfhour ride to Hay River, which adds on to the costs of my residents. Will the Minister make a commitment to get his department to look into this unique situation for these two communities and come up with a subsidy that would help them move forward...