Mr. Speaker, certainly I will be supporting the motion. I was proud to be able to second this.

Quite often, we often think of education as such an amazing thing and here we have an educational renewal document that many educators are telling me that they’re concerned about the lack of input. If we want to do it right, we have to make sure we get off on a good foot. Any home builder will tell you that you can’t construct a good, sound, quality home without building a solid foundation. I consider this 10-year plan, this renewal, should be a solid foundation, one that is so firm and so strong it cannot be cracked or questioned. It should be the equality that we would be looking to our gold standard, so when we look to the foundation, is that quality there.

A number of educators have told many of us, some school boards have told us, consultation in some manner might have felt like they walked in one door and were in a hurry to get out the next. Where is the community consultation? We’ve heard from a number of people. I, like Mr. Yakeleya, know differently. When I dropped off my children at school, I looked in their eyes and thought of hope and promise. I look to the teachers. I give my children to the teachers and I look at why they do their job, because they’re deeply passionate about being involved with young minds, fostering

opportunity, giving them hope for the future. I, similarly to Mr. Yakeleya, question where does that hope sometimes go with some of these students. That alone should be a call to arms.

One of the most significant problems we deal with here today, and I will lay two of them out, are certainly education and health. This happens to be one of the pillars of why many of us are here, which is education.

We must work with our educators to ensure that they get the best plan to help work with our children. We must be behind the educators to do this. The educators must be involved. The best gift I can give my children, besides health, obviously, is a good education. I question have we given them the best gift.

Fostering this opportunity must be a relentless challenge we continue to ask ourselves. We must find ways to help build those skills and certainly build those abilities within our young people and certainly give the right tools to every educator to be able to help build that future that is limitless for every young person. But often we hear comments in the sense of statistics, as highlighted by Member Dolynny, who is right. Kids aren’t going to school. That should be a question in and of itself. Kids aren’t finishing school with quality education. Where is the kicking and screaming? Kids that are graduating at the top of their class find that they’re at the bottom of the class elsewhere. They can’t even get into the class when they are actually tested. These are questions that need answering and I’m not sure that this education renewal is answering them in the way that needs to be done.

School boards want more, educators want more, MLAs want more, parents want more. We all want more out of this renewal program. I have yet to find someone who says this was the best we could have done.

I will be supporting this motion. I would say that, if it was my opinion, I think it needs to be reworked. I’m not suggesting those who didn’t do their job didn’t try; I just think we could do better. It’s not for me, it’s not for my colleagues, but for the kids that we want to give that limitless opportunity we call education to. Without that opportunity, we’re denying them their rights. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.