Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following on my colleagues for Education Week, I’d like to talk about some of the teachers that we have in Tuk that are leaving this year.

I was nine years old when Ms. Cameron came to town; her and her husband Brent. She really influenced me to always try and progress myself in school. She taught every one of my kids, all four of them. She won’t get to teach Mikayla, but she’s only eight, so hopefully next year. Ms. Cameron will be retiring back home to Cape Breton.

Mrs. Hayslip, who has always been a rock for the community and working with the kids in Tuk, pushing them, making sure they’re doing the best they possibly can.

Mr. and Mrs. Dawson, all the hard work they’ve done for the community of Tuk.

This year we had our long-time education...Thirty-five years Jean Gruben sat as the director of the education board in Tuk. I’d really like to thank her and all the hard work she’s done for all the kids.

All of the teachers in the Territory, thank you. To all the staff at Mangilaluk School and all the schools in Nunakput, keep up the good work. I thank the teachers and the parents.

On another good note, we had 108 kids over 80 percent attendance in Tuk that will be going to Inuvik for swimming day at the pool. That’s 108 kids. That’s awesome to see. I’d like to thank the

parents that keep pushing those kids to school even when it’s 40 below. I’d like to thank all the teachers in the Territory and the Minister as well.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise in this House to recognize a special day. Albert Bohnet is 94; Febula Bohnet is 84. Today they have been married 66 years.

---Applause

She will always be the younger woman in his life.

The marriage started back in 1945. Just to give us a sense of scale and time, that was the last year of World War II. It’s a singular milestone.

Today they still live in their own home. They burn wood. They have a garden. Clearly a recipe for good health and a long life of love together is what they get as a result of their life together.

As we wish them well for the coming year and another year of togetherness and continued good health and happiness, I also have a wish for this Assembly that we may all be blessed with the love, health and longevity in our lives that they have shared in theirs.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I wish to recognize Pages here this week from the community of Sambaa Ke/Trout Lake. Also thanks to the principal, Lee Fillion, for being the chaperone. It’s an excellent program and I continue to support it. First here this week was Ms. Katrina Deneron. Second was Ms. Sheyenne Jumbo. I’m proud to say that Sheyenne is a young author. She had written a book in Trout Lake called Come Learn with Me. It sells at Amazon.com for $12.24. There are only two left.

---Applause

Hopefully they had a great week and really enjoyed it. Once again, it’s a good opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to bring children in from all our small and remote communities. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to take this opportunity and with pleasure to recognize Darrell Bohnet, one of the children of Al and Febula Bohnet, from Fort Smith originally. A good Metis boy. Many years with the government, vice-president with Diavik, now retired in Yellowknife. I’d like to thank him for coming to the Assembly. He’s lucky to have such parents as he does. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr, Miltenberger. Item 7, acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are to the Minister responsible for Human Resources. I want to follow up on an inquiry and a bit of correspondence with the Minister regarding greening the workplace under the June 2009 Human Resources action plan, A Brilliant North. This objective calls for encouragement to employees to develop and implement environmental programs. Can the Minister tell us what work has been done to date? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Greening the workplace is a very important initiative that this government undertook as part of its 20/20 human resource strategic planning. What we’ve accomplished is we’ve set up an interdepartmental advisory Green Team that meets on a regular basis. We have representation from the majority of the departments and they make recommendations to our deputy minister committee on a quarterly basis. The green advisory team has developed an action and terms of reference that they’re working on. Thank you.

I appreciate the comments from the Minister. Mr. Speaker, this is good work. It shows motivation on behalf of our employees and our leadership. We know that improving practices involves changing habits and human behaviour such as getting people to wear seat belts or stop cell phone driving, not an easy task; one of the most difficult things to change. Strong leadership is often needed. The Minister, according to my correspondence, has indicated that at least seven departments are signed on. That’s a good start. What more aggressive plans does the Minister have to roll this out across government beyond

Yellowknife and provide the marketing resources needed to give us a model workplace? Thank you.

Right now we’re focusing on our government. As well as having an advisory team we also have internal departmental teams, and I’m pleased to say that we have five interdepartmental teams that have undertaken a host of initiatives so that we’ll have a greener workplace and with the active participation of all of our employees. Thank you.

Again, good work. I understand that some of the work has included voluntarily setting printers to duplex, using recycled paper, having recycling stations in offices, in-house waste audits. ENR has a Green Event Catering Contract Policy for its departmental use. I’m wondering if this could be spread to all departments. I also note, Mr. Speaker, many people complain to me about GNWT catering that includes bottled water. They just shake their head when we’re surrounded by the best water in the world. Does this catering policy include the dropping out of bottled water? Thank you.

In addition to some of the activities that Mr. Bromley outlined, we have developed some other activities that I would like to note such as in-office composting, purchasing recycled bond paper, we’ve purchased bicycles for interoffice travel, also hybrid pilots. We also organize healthy lifestyle activities, we conduct in-house waste audits, have established recycling stations in every department, and we organize staff awareness contests. All of these activities play a role in improving our workplace and, certainly, with utilizing the deputy minister committee, we use that to make sure that it occurs in every department. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to note that these things and a lot of other common-place green behaviours sound to me like the least we should be doing in our departments and not really voluntary. The Human Resources department and Public Works and Services are best positioned to make these standard practices. Why are we leaving it up to employees to separately devise and implement the most basic practices of green office management? Can we get this in place as a standard that must be achieved?

It is our intention to implement a Green Procurement Policy within the department; as well, the GNWT event catering which will exclude bottled water. There are a number of locations in the city that are bottled water-free zones. As well, we are reviewing the department utility monitoring status and we hope to be able to report on that. I will have to check on the

status on whether the Legislative Assembly is a bottled water-free zone. Thank you.

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. It is Education Week and clearly there are a lot of things affecting education in the Northwest Territories. One of them, in my opinion, is infrastructure. We’ve done a lot of great work with infrastructure but here in Yellowknife we’ve got a couple of the schools that need a little bit of work. They were on our capital plan once upon a time but they’ve both kind of disappeared. I’m wondering if the Minister can give me a bit of assurance that we’re going to see in the transition documents that the department is working on some attention put on Sissons School, which needs some significant renovation, as well as the back side of Mildred Hall, which needs some upgrading.

These renovations will save us money over the long term, money that we can roll into the actual education of our children. If I can get some comments from the Minister, that would be great.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. At one time these were part of the capital process, but due to other pressing issues we had to deal with… But as we move forward for next year’s capital planning process this could be part of the initiative that we need to bring forward along with other capital project initiatives. We’ve talked about the Sissons Schools and also Mildred Hall, completion of the Mildred Hall and different aspects.

Mr. Speaker, during the transition period we’ll be talking about what needs to be before the 17th Assembly, but it will be up to the 17th Assembly to

decide as we go forward, but this summer we’ll be discussing that capital planning process. Mahsi.

I appreciate the Minister’s response. I know that we’ve had a lot of conversation about Sissons and Mildred Hall and I’m happy to hear that it’s going to be in the transition documents. At least I think that’s what I heard. Can I get a little bit of confirmation that indeed this department will be putting a specific reference to Sissons’ renovations and the back side of Mildred Hall, the windows and whatnot, in the transition document? I know it will be the

responsibility of the 17th government, but I know

this department has done some work, has done some costing and had a conversation with the board. I want to make sure that that is built into the transition document so it’s highlighted as a priority coming into the 17th Assembly. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I did state that this will be part of the discussion that we need to have as we discuss all the capital projects for the Northwest Territories and we need to prioritize what needs to go in place for next year. Definitely, the Sissons School and Mildred Hall will be part of that discussion and we’ll keep the Members posted as we move forward. They will be part of the process as well. Mahsi.