Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One thing that is important to make clear is that the funding that this government provides to divisional education councils is, in effect, block funding. The formula allocation says that a certain amount is for transportation, a certain amount is for special needs students. The boards themselves have the opportunity to move those monies around as best suits their needs, so they are not tied to whatever the formula says. They can change the pupil/ teacher ratio to put money into transportation, for instance, if they chose to do that. So, the boards themselves get to determine how the monies are allocated.
The funding formula is only how we as a department come up with the allocations for the boards. Why would that affect the numbers of teachers? In some regions, the population is not growing as quickly as it is in others. So, some boards will see an increase in the amount of funding they receive, others will see a decrease because the numbers of students also play a part in the formula. A region, for instance, that is seeing an effective growth in enrolment of eight percent, may in fact see more dollars next year, whereas a region which is only seeing growth of one percent or two percent may see a reduction in dollars. So those two factors have to be taken into account when considering why there may be a reduction in the numbers of teachers.