Mr. Speaker, as I stated in the House yesterday, there is a review of the inclusive schooling. There is a linkage with the early childhood development and it all falls into play. We want to assess inclusive schooling. How is it being delivered? Is it exhausted in all schools to the best of its ability to assist those students? That’s what we’re doing, based on what we’ve heard from the communities, what we’ve heard from the standing committee and other stakeholders out there. That is based on that. We decided we should move forward on re-evaluating our inclusive schooling, so that’s what we’re doing. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I’m glad that the Minister mentioned that he’s reviewing the inclusive schooling again, because that is something that I heard on the radio and I heard it brought up many times yesterday during question period. Was the review process from the Executive not sufficient enough to move forward in the program review office that this department has to do a second review and spend dollars to review this program again when the program review office has already reviewed it and brought recommendations forward? Can he justify why they’re reviewing a program that has already been reviewed from an internal source for the government? It just doesn’t make sense, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, today we are reviewing our inclusive schooling. We want to reach out to the stakeholders. We heard yesterday that we should be talking to those front-line teachers. We should be talking to those students, the teachers, the professionals, the educators. So that’s what we are embarking on. We are doing our own research, as well, across Canada, across the United States and various places. We want to have a product that will be best suited for Northwest Territories, and based on what we’ve heard and what we will hear from the general public across the Northwest Territories. We are pursuing that and we will be delivering that to the standing committee once it is available. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions here. Does the Minister know if the last review from the PRO did not address those or go to the same stakeholders? Whose decision was it to go and review this inclusive schooling again? Who made that decision to review a program that has already been reviewed previously? Who made that decision? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, inclusive schooling falls under the Department of Education. I am the Minister responsible for inclusive schooling, so I pursued with my department, gave my department instruction to re-evaluate that inclusive schooling. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has raised a very specific concern. I will commit to consult with my ENR officials first, and then we will look at what steps need to be taken up to and including the recommendation by the Member that we talk to our federal partner on this. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. This is a very serious concern, obviously, dealing with arsenic trioxide.

The water licence applications submitted under the auspices of an emergency, which excuses it from review process and so on, contains additional provisions to carry out work underground. So this work will not be regulated by environmental conditions governing the overall remediation project. AANDC argues the underground work is urgent, but YKDFN, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, doesn’t agree, and others question the work qualifies for the emergency exemption required to go ahead now.

As co-proponent, what independent work has this government done to evaluate the urgency of this aspect of the project? In other words, are we making our own decisions here or just following the federal proponent, which is also the regulator? Thank you.

We have some very capable individuals that are at that table representing our interests. So they have collectively come to that decision, but the Member has raised, once again, another specific issue and I will check back with the officials at ENR to look into the specifics of that concern. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s response again. I think we really want to use those emergency provisions only when there is an emergency, otherwise it needs the oversight. Now, these problems could have been avoided if we had an effective community-based mechanism for independent oversight. Yet, despite six drafts of an oversight discussion paper and eight drafts of an Environmental Agreement, the working group hasn’t met since last August.

The Minister stated his support for independent oversight at a March 2012 workshop. So will the Minister direct his department and encourage our federal partners to get to work on independent oversight moving to conclusion? Mahsi.

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Music to my ears. Thanks again. Given the imminent and long sought powers of devolution, we could ensure Giant Mine is the last massive liability dumped on the taxpayer. This government introduced environmental security requirements for activities on Commissioner’s land. What is the government’s plan for moving swiftly to extend these requirements to new legislation through devolution to use of the land we’ll be taking control of following devolution?

Thank you. I didn’t quite catch the whole question. So I will take it as notice, I’ll check Hansard and I’ll get back to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment what he’s doing about holding the mines to account on their economic agreements and perhaps even inviting the opportunity of having the mines – let’s be very clear – subsidize a northern workforce to come south to work at those mines. So, in short, what is the Minister of ITI doing with regard to Section 10 of the socio-economic agreement in having ensured it’s implemented and fulfilled? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We continue to work with industry. We work with the mines. I also work closely with my counterpart at Education, Culture and Employment who are responsible for mine training in the Northwest Territories, and Health and Social Services through Minister Beaulieu. We meet regularly with the mines and we have to continue the dialogue on the reasons why the numbers aren’t what they should be and we will continue that dialogue. It does us good to continue to work together on finding solutions to getting our people employed at those mines. Thank you.

I could have sworn that was an answer from the Minister of Education; we need discussions, discussions, meetings and more discussion. For the record, Section 10 is about remedies where, if you cannot reasonably meet those commitments, you put in a formal written statement that talks about how you can achieve them and how can you.

So now to Section 9, how is the Minister holding these mines to account under Section 9 of the socio-economic agreement that puts Northerners to work?

Thank you. The three mining companies were before the Member’s committee last fall. These concerns weren’t raised at that time with me from the mines. Again, we meet with the mining presidents, we meet with industry at every opportunity. We just recently had a meeting between the three Ministers and the mines here in Yellowknife not too long ago. We need to find a way forward, and in this case it does us little good to be fighting with industry, in the case of De Beers, a company that’s going to invest close to $1 billion into this territory and provide many more job opportunities here in the NWT. Thank you.

More job opportunities for the southern workforce as I describe as tourists just visiting. Section 8 of the socio-economic agreement speaks to remedies. I have not heard any solutions other than let’s talk, let’s trade dialogue, let’s have meetings. Who is defending the northern person who needs a job, who is opening up opportunities? It doesn’t sound like this Minister, and if he is, then let’s hear concrete facts and commitments on how he’s doing that, because I haven’t heard anything to date. Thank you.