Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I could do a Member’s statement to the Minister’s reference to self-identification, so I guess I don’t have time for that right now.

I’d like to know from the Minister, though, I don’t think I heard in any of his answers that there will be any valuation of the priority list, that there will be a look at those two priority lists to, one, bring them together so that they actually match and people are listed in the same priority for each of them and to possibly change the priorities of various people within the Affirmative Action Policy. Is that possible? Thank you.

We are looking at the priority lists, because affirmative action covers a number of different areas which deem to be priorities in the hiring of this government. Certainly it includes not only affirmative action employees, but also women in the workforce, all hard-to-hire areas and people with disabilities, and they’re broken up into different categories and we are looking at it to see if there are ways to make it more effective in our hiring practices. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment. Earlier today, during my Member’s statement, I mentioned the declining enrolments in Yellowknife. I was wondering if the Minister could please outline for us the enrolment levels for all of the Yellowknife schools for 2008-2009 school year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Specifically for Yellowknife district, first of all, J.H. Sissons is at 57 percent utilization; Mildred Hall is at 56 percent; N.J. Macpherson is at 57 percent; Range Lake North is at 68 percent; Sir John Franklin is at 98 percent; William MacDonald is at 43 percent, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I forgot a couple more schools. Ecole St. Joe’s is at 80 percent; St. Pat’s, 111 percent; and Weledeh at 82 percent. Mahsi.

Thank you. Those are the 2008-2009 numbers, I believe. Are the numbers fairly consistent for the 2009-10 fiscal year and do we have some sort of projections on where enrolments are going to be going over the next, say, four or five years? Thank you.

Mahsi. With the projection of the enrolments, as the Member alluded to earlier, the enrolments are going down and we do have our department working on a five-year plan. Not only that, but we do have a consultant that’s working on the 10-year education facility plan for Yellowknife, all schools. So those are areas that we’re very concerned about, the enrolment and how we can deal with those issues and come out with solutions. So those are the areas of focus that we have with our department.

Thanks to the Minister for that response. The Minister made reference to a 10-year plan. I’m wondering if the Minister could go into a bit more detail about what the intent of that review and that plan is for us.

This particular piece of work will deal with enrolment, the data that will be collected the past years and also on a going forward basis, the past four years and also future direction for space planning. So those are the areas that will be focused with the group. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks once again to the Minister for that. I was wondering if the Minister could please tell us, when he refers to group, who does he mean, who is in that group, and if he could give us a bit of a timeline as to when we might see some results from that review come forward to this Legislature. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When I refer to group, it’s the team that’s in my department with the school boards that we’re working with, because we have to gather information and data from them and the consultant that collects all the information. So that is the team that we’re working with, and that information we’re hoping to be completed by the end of the fiscal year. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I was talking about the housing situation that we’re having up in my riding in Nunakput. In addition to all Regular MLAs passing a motion urging the government to review its current conditions, because clearly it’s not working, will this government participate in an intergovernmental regional discussion to review all concerns identified in the petition? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The review is being done as we speak and we’re looking to see the results of this review. Of course, we are listening to the concerns of all the people out there with some of the issues they’re having with the transfer responsibilities. So the review is done. Once we see the review, we’ll have a look at it and plan a course of action from there. Thank you.

That’s almost as quick as Jane getting responses from the Minister of Transportation. Mr. Speaker, given that local governments know their communities and issues best, the best ways to administer programs, making sure that we consider given the housing conditions and the program implementation, especially for small remote communities has been in a crisis situation for quite some time given the recent changes, I’m just making sure that the Minister and his departments, in the smaller communities, they actually go to the communities and meet with the government and local leadership. Thank you.

I’d like to invite the Minister to my riding of Nunakput, once he is planning to go there to do a community tour. Thank you.

Thank you. I’d be pleased to join the Member and other Members from smaller communities in touring some of their operations and getting a feel for how the Housing Corp is running in their community and what best we can do to improve the services we provide to the clients. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.I’d like to follow up on my statement earlier today where I was recognizing people working hard on the issue of climate change. I know they appreciated the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources and my colleague for Great Slave participating in the Climate Justice march this Saturday, but the public is wondering what is this government’s position on climate change and the need for greenhouse gas reductions, recognizing it in context with the science that tells us we need at least 25 percent reductions by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Michael Miltenberger.