Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Those are the areas that we are exploring with other provincial jurisdictions. We knew that it is a controversial issue. There have been some incidents in the past in other provinces, provincial jurisdictions. We want to explore further and do our research. Some legislation is working and some isn’t. We need to find out the pros and cons of why it is not working. Not only that, but I would like to work with Municipal and Community Affairs, especially with the Proud2bNWT.ca focusing on the youth and also the Department of Justice Not Us! campaign focusing on the youth and drugs. It all involves anti-bullying in the schools, in the communities. We need to have a coordinated approach. That is what our focus is on right now. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, thank you to the Minister for giving us a broad overview but it sounds like there is some work that wants to be done but is not being done. Until such time as we need to raise awareness of bullying in school in our system, can the Minister describe, because we are still working on such actions at this point, what exactly are the legal recourses for the school administration to deal with bullying as it stands today? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there are certain processes in place with various school boards to have their own policies. Each of the school boards have different policies in place to deal with bullying in the schools. When there is an issue they deal with the school boards and the superintendents and also they deal with my department because I need to work closely with the board of education across the Northwest Territories to deal with 49 schools. Those are some of the processes that I outlined. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister’s response on policy. I am talking about legislation. These are two different things. They need to protect our students, and policy obviously is not doing what it is meant to do. In fact, I want to take this one step further. If the Minister’s response is such that we are still researching a subject which

is being dealt with on a provincial basis today and we have to wait for such means, it may suggest that maybe the Members on this side of the House might have to come forward with a private member’s bill. I know the Members here are going to be very fashionable bringing that forward maybe in the months to come. Until that could be drafted and, again, if we are waiting for the government side of the House to come forward, are there any other supportive or communicative strategies the Minister is aware of to raise awareness of bullying and cyber-bullying in the interim as we are waiting for this type of legislation? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I realize there is a difference between policy and legislation. We currently don’t have legislation on bullying. That is part of the reason why I am saying that there are policies in place that deal with the school boards. At the same time, we are exploring those areas. In order to bring legislation into effect, I need to deal with the standing committee. If there are going to be changes to policy and legislation, then we need to deal with the committee as we move forward. Those are options that we are currently exploring. I am hoping to bring that forward within due time. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much. I just want to follow up with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about capitalizing the needs of schools in a couple of communities in my riding, most particularly the Charles Yohin School in Fort Liard and the Charles Tetcho in Trout Lake. I’d like to ask the Minister what steps are necessary in order to move from the capital needs assessment portion of the planning of these schools and get these schools incorporated into our five-year capital plan.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. With all of the capital infrastructure, the process of going through the budget planning process to deal with capital, and we do have an area of technical or evaluation of the schools. So we do, upon requests, evaluation of the schools. For particular schools, whether it be Trout Lake or Liard and other areas of infrastructure that’s badly needed in the community or in need of repair, then we do an analysis in those areas and we’ve done those in the Member’s riding as well. So when it comes to the capital planning process, these items will be discussed for sure. Mahsi.

Thank you very much. I’d like to work with the department as we move towards the capital planning process in the springtime come May and June. I was just asking about getting the process on the capital plan. I know that in other departments they use planning studies. So I would like to start with that. When can we look at doing planning studies for these two schools in order to put an amount on them? Thank you.

I need to find out from my department exactly where the status is on those two particular schools that the Member is referring to, particularly on the planning studies, if they’ve done one already; if not, then when is that going to be happening. So I can get back to the Member on those two schools that he’s referring to. Mahsi.

Thank you very much. So the next step is to raise that in the capital planning. As well, I think the key objective here is to move it from the capital needs assessment to the capital planning studies, and also I’d like to invite the Minister to do a tour of the riding so that he can see for himself the needs of these schools and the amount of children that are in them. As well, what efforts have been done to date in these two communities in looking at and assessing the schools? Thank you.

We’ve had consultants work on various school projects, whether it be evaluation, the status of each school, and there’s been a highlight of minor or major repairs that need to be initiated. There’s been some minor capital infrastructure that has been identified for these two schools. So it is currently in the works, and in moving forward, if there are other issues that we need to discuss, then the capital plan process will be the opportune time. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche. Okay. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the issue of process and the whole underlying theme here is it’s not about the Betty House in particular, which if money made itself available I would certainly support transition shelter for women and children in every regional centre of the Northwest Territories, but as we all know that’s certainly not possible. But it’s sad because it comes under the halo of a great launch and a significant achievement under a contribution from this government towards this project. But yet at the end of the day Members are left wondering where did this come from.

My question will be directed to the Premier, strictly about process of his government working with our side of the House. Would the Premier explain why weren’t MLAs kept informed of this particular announcement? Because we have no idea where the money was coming from, we had no idea this project launch was going to happen, and e-mailing us just before the Assembly sat is not communicating. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have thought the Member would have been right on top of this as this Betty House is in his riding, but the money was approved in the 2009-2010 budget through Canada’s Economic Action Plan. It was carried over and it was reviewed by the Standing Committee on Social Programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

You can tell from the Premier’s response there about how did I know, clearly I must have hit a vein of reality here. The fact is this side of the House is not fully kept apprised as to what actions were happening. This particular project did not get the vetting of the standing committee in advance of this particular situation, and as I said in my Member’s statement, clearly whenever a significant contribution happens for any particular region, the MLA is informed. Certainly not only myself, as the Premier has readily informed of being the local MLA, there are seven MLAs in Yellowknife and something could have gone out in writing to us.

What actions is this Premier going to do and take today to correct these steps of blatant insults to this side of the House?

It’s my understanding that the Standing Committee on Social Programs was informed that work was ongoing on finalizing this agreement at a meeting in December 2010. Also through normal protocol and convention we give additional advanced notice at least an hour before we announce it, which we did on Friday of last week. Thank you.

I want to acknowledge the tone seems to have changed in the Premier’s response towards me. I want to thank him for that because I felt very insulted by I should have known, and the fact is I think other people at the same time were insulted.

This being vetted in 2010, well, I can tell you in 2011 I asked questions specifically about what type of contribution from the NWT Housing Corporation will be made towards the Betty House. At the time the Minister of Housing had said well, geez, there’s no money, the wallet is bare. So in fact this contribution seems to have come out of the air. So how are we going to correct these particular

problems and where did the money come from? Because it would have been nice to be vetted in this current Assembly. Thank you.

I’ll try to be very careful about my tone, but the money was approved in the 2009-2010 budget through Canada’s Economic Action Plan. Thank you.