Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the need for some discretionary latitude in the granting of leave to teachers who may be involved in volunteering in very worthwhile efforts on behalf of
promoting healthy, engaged youth in our communities. If the government doesn’t think that these kind of volunteers make a difference in our communities, we need only point to a young man like Brendan Green, who made it all the way to the Olympics, and he did so as a result of the volunteer coaches in Hay River that started him off and got him going on his sport.
I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment how do we change a policy that would give the principal of a school the discretionary latitude to grant leave for a teacher to be involved in these activities. Is it a policy at this government level? Is it at the DEA level? Is there a regulation? Is there a human resources manual? How could we go about making amendments to something like that so that we can grant our school principals and our teachers more flexibility?