Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to follow on a theme that I started yesterday in the area of Education, Culture and Employment. In the Education Act:
7(1) Every student is entitled to have access to the education program in a regular institutional setting, in a public school or public denominational school in the community in which the student resides.
7(2) An education body shall provide a student with the support services necessary to give effect to subsection (1) in accordance with the direction of the Minister.
Mr. Speaker, I raised the concern about special needs and I will continue to do that today. The Minister stated about this government's work in the area of early childhood development to try to help those young children that will be entering our schools. Mr. Speaker, right now we have in our classrooms many problems existing that need to be addressed and we can't wait for more work to be done or for the new crew of children to come in and take over and replace those as they go through the system. For as much effort that we're putting into the early childhood development, we need to do something with those children in the system today.
Mr. Speaker, I've been made aware by a constituent that her child has difficulty in school and needs a special needs assistant. Right now, through the existing funding and resources at the DEC and DEA level, that's just not available because you don't have more than probably three or four per school and that would be on a good day, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, this family, to get assistance for their son, would have to send him to another jurisdiction to get the speech therapy that he needs. Then he comes back to the North and what is there? Well, right now, unfortunately, in the community of Inuvik there is no backup or support when somebody does come back home. It's needless to say when we send someone out to a southern jurisdiction for help, it shows how much we're lacking in the Northwest Territories.
I'm glad the Minister, in his Minister's statement, talked about effective behaviour support because this sounds like it might be an area we can investigate further. Based on his statement and my concerns, I will have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment later. Thank you.
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