Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I’d like to thank my teachers, I guess, back home who had an influence in my life. Ms. Janie Jones back home in Tuk, still teaching there for the last 30 years. Ms. Anne-Marie Cameron, my Grade 5 teacher. She really did a lot of work with me that year, for the best. I’d like to thank my old principal, Mr. James

Anderson, and my old high school teacher, Mr. Grant Gowans. Thank you, colleagues.

Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome Weledeh resident Madeline Holloway, daughter of Chris and Claire, and also her aunt Amanda Mallon, all residents of Weledeh.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two Pages: Jaida Edjericon and Walker Adjun, both from St. Patrick High School, here with us paging for the Legislative Assembly. I’d like to welcome them and recognize all the good, hard work that Pages put in to provide for the House. Also to the visitors that we have in the gallery, happy Education Week.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of local Yellowknife educators who are with us in the gallery. Bernie Giacobbo, who is the assistant superintendent for Yellowknife Education District No. 1, Gayla Meredith, who is president of the NWT Teachers’ Association. Another educator who is now working in a different field, my constituency assistant, Amanda Mallon, and her niece Madeline Holloway. Welcome, all.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to acknowledge a constituent of mine, Bernie Giacobbo. As Ms. Bisaro pointed out, he is the YK1 assistant superintendent and he is doing a great job over there.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Shirley Firth, a long-time Olympic athlete and also a recipient of numerous awards, including the Aboriginal Achievement Award.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Colleagues, I’d like to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of my executive assistant and good friend, Shirley Firth-Larsson.

Shirley was among the first Aboriginal women to compete in various international cross-country ski competitions, including four World Ski Championships in 1972 to 1984. Shirley represented Canada in four consecutive Winter Olympics, a streak only equalled by speed-skating legend Gaetan Boucher.

Her career was an outstanding testimony to the dedication displayed by her in achieving a level of excellence very rarely attained by any athlete in the country. Shirley was a member of Canada’s National Cross-Country Ski Team for an unprecedented 17 consecutive years, competing at the top of the World Cup circuit.

Shirley competed in four World Ski Championships and four Olympics, won 42 Canadian National Championship medals: 29 Gold, 10 Silver and three Bronze.

Shirley was awarded with the Northwest Territories Commissioner’s Award, the Order of Canada, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Award, the National Aboriginal Achievement Award and the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Award. She was inducted into the Canadian Museum Ski Hall of Fame and inducted in the Banff Sports Hall of Fame.

Shirley, it is an honour to work with you. Please join me in welcoming my executive assistant, Ms. Shirley Firth-Larsson, into the House today.

---Applause

Thank you, colleagues. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Recently, there was a reduction in the funding allocation for inclusive schooling. I would like to ask the Minister what his department plans to do to ensure adequate funding with a proper targeting and resourcing of assistance for children with special needs in our classroom.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Part of the plan, as we move forward, is to re-evaluate our interest in schooling, the funding that’s been distributed to all school boards. Part of the planning is to develop a comprehensive engagement plan. We’d like to hear from the stakeholders and professions, educators, the people that are involved, the resources. Based on the outcome of the report, the recommendation, we’ll more than likely come back here to standing committee to make a presentation. If we’re going to make some changes, then, of course, there’s also a cost factor. I will be tabling that document in the House and sharing that with the standing committee.

Not only are there inadequate resources for inclusive schooling, but the way that the inclusive schooling funding is distributed, I believe, is premised on a wrong approach. I would like to ask the Minister if he’s aware of how other jurisdictions fund inclusive schooling if they have inclusive schooling policies, and do we have examples where the inclusive schooling funding follows a student and is not provided through a formula.

We’ve done some of the research throughout the other jurisdictions. It varies. There is different programming in other jurisdictions. Some sponsor students through various grades one on one, individual assessments. They do a student assessment. In the Northwest Territories we use a different approach. The whole comprehensive, I want to listen to the people. Especially the educators, the parents are involved, how we can upgrade or enhance our existing programming. Those are some of the fundamental changes we can foresee. We are doing a lot of research with other jurisdictions. We have contacts with other educators throughout Canada. Even my colleagues across the country here in Canada. We want to have the best practices, follow that lead. That is the information we will be sharing with the standing committee.

When the Minister says that he wants to hear from educators, we have a rather strange policy that doesn’t apply to anyone else in the public service but to educators. We seem to have some kind of a commitment that’s made to not speak to the challenges and issues that they face, outside of maybe speaking to their superiors within the school system. It is not often that you formally ever hear of a teacher complain about anything, because there is some other rule, which I’ve never really been able to understand or get to the bottom of, that they are not to discuss this. How would the Minister, I want him to hear from educators. I want him to not just hear from administration, not just the heads of schools, I want him to hear from front-line educators on this issue of inclusive schooling. How does the Minister propose to achieve that?

I agree with the Member that we need to hear from those individuals that are front-line teachers, because they are the ones who are exposed to the special needs children in our school system. I’m sure they have ideas and suggestions that we can work with. My department will be reaching out to those individual teachers that are front-line workers, not only administrators. I agree; we need to reach out to beyond administrators, similar to what we have done in the past with various initiatives that we have undertaken re-evaluating programs.

Since I’ve taken on the role as Minister of ECE five years ago, we’ve been undertaking various initiatives, re-evaluating and reaching out to the grassroots people. I think those are the individuals who are heavily impacted and we want to listen to them. That’s the area we are pursuing.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although I disagree with the premise on which inclusive schooling funding dollars are distributed, we’ve had a cut, a loss of $1 million in the inclusive schooling budgeting.

Can the Minister tell me if there is any way the Department of Education, from within, could find the $1 million to reinstate that until such time as this survey, study, consultation process that he’s talking about has taken place? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we have to go through the process. We’re re-evaluating a program, inclusive schooling. Based on that, there’s going to be a business planning process. In the meantime, we’re continuing to work with what we have in our budget, but rest assured that these are some of the changes that we’ll probably foresee within inclusive schooling, based on what we’ve heard from the general public, the professionals and the educators, and then we’ll come back to the standing committee to update them on the status. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about social passing that’s happening in our schools. As I travel in my constituency, many parents raise concern about that. I know that there is a practice out there and I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, why is our education system allowing social passing. Thank you.

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