Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too have IRS personal credits that I have not had the opportunity to use up, so I would be pleased to call on the federal Minister to extend the time period so that we can maximize the healing required for some residential school students.

Within my riding we’ve had a lot of assistance from both the Inuvialuit and the Gwich’in helping our residents work closely to fill out these forms. I’d like to ask that the Premier also request that the federal government provide additional support for eligible applicants.

As the Member indicates, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement is administered by the federal government and, as I understand it, a component of this agreement relates to personal credits that individuals may be eligible to put towards educational, cultural projects, skills development or other related purposes. I think that we would want to see that information available to survivors, and the concern that has been raised by former eligible students that have not had adequate opportunity to apply to this program, so I would be pleased to include that in the request.

I’d like to ask the Premier, if the deadline is extended, will the Minister commit to helping NWT residents maneuver through this application process? For example, with the communities that have government service officers.

We have those community liaison officers for that exact purpose, to help people in the communities access benefits that they are entitled to, and we would work with the federal government to make sure that if it is extended that they be provided with the requisite information so that they can assist those former residential school students that would like to take advantage and benefit from these personal credits so that they can maximize their healing.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for Premier McLeod, following my Member’s Statement where I spoke about my disappointment that yet again this government has acted in a way inconsistent with the tenets of consensus government, this time in the formation and work of the Intergovernmental Council on Land and Resource Management. Despite assurances

from the Premier, MLAs had no input into the terms of reference and have no observer status.

Why, despite specific requests to and obligations of the Premier, were MLAs left completely outside of the room of the Intergovernmental Council discussions on terms of reference when these important items were discussed?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did bring forward a request from the MLAs to the Intergovernmental Council. I think it’s important to recognize that the Intergovernmental Council is intended to foster improved cooperation and collaboration on land and resource management issues, and each government will continue to represent its own interests and the independent jurisdictions of each government are untouched. So, ultimately, the accountabilities of each government must remain. So on this Intergovernmental Council there’s the Government of the Northwest Territories and at least seven Aboriginal governments, and when the question was posed to them, the council felt that it would not be beneficial for them to have observers. They asked if they could have observer status in our committee meetings. So, as I indicated to committee, the Intergovernmental Council is very interested in meeting on an annual basis with standing committee or Caucus or what have you.

The Premier just explained how he contravened the consensus government, given that the mandate of this council is that every government sticks to their own authorities, and the authority of the Premier is to require a consensus approach.

He also mentioned that others requested observer status, and I have absolutely no problem and we told the Premier this – I certainly told the Premier this – that the meetings should be open and transparent for any elected officials. So why did he not say yes?

I spoke about the apparent overlap of responsibility of the Intergovernmental Council and this House. Given that the Intergovernmental Council is making decisions such as priority of legislation, apparently, and who knows what else behind closed doors, the authorities and MLAs are being arbitrarily usurped or undermined. Decisions are now apparently made on behalf of this House by a brand new quasi-government structure that has had essentially no democratic review, the Intergovernmental Council.

How does the Premier see the mandate of Regular Members vis-à-vis the decisions of the Intergovernmental Council?

The Member is suggesting that there is conspiracy behind every door, but that’s certainly not the case. The Intergovernmental

Council, as we’ve laid out, will take a lead on legislative and policy matters related to land that they identify. These are issues that the Aboriginal governments feel are important for them to understand may emanate from their land claim agreements, because in order to be part of the Intergovernmental Council you have to be recognized as an Aboriginal government and to be an Aboriginal government you have to have a land claim or be negotiating at a land claim table.

So the way it works is that the Intergovernmental Council is not a replacement for the processes governments have and which governments must follow when it comes to legislative or policy development. So I don’t see it interfering in any way with the work of the Legislative Assembly or consensus government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I should be clear that I support the concept of an Intergovernmental Council if it’s transparent and clear. It’s not transparent and clear, and the Premier’s minions do not understand, because they’re telling us that the Intergovernmental Council is setting priorities which are the responsibility of this House. That’s the example I raised.

As an elected representative of the people, when I look at the Premier’s push to give away and limit our right to authority without any democratic review still, I have concerns about the opportunity to meet the expectations of the public for MLA involvement and representation in the regular day-to-day decisions of the House.

What other decisions are the Premier and Intergovernmental Council making without the input of MLAs? Mahsi.

As I explained to committee and as the Member will be very pleased to know, all of the members of the Intergovernmental Council are very committed to transparency and all of the intergovernmental leaders have agreed to make meeting outcomes available, and leaders also recognize the need to be open and transparent and available and open to the press, their constituents and their fellow leaders within their governments. As I offered, there are ways around this observer thing. All of the governments have agreed to limit their participation to three members at the council. As I suggested in the briefing, our government could have, perhaps, the chair of the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning sit in on the meetings as an observer for all of the MLAs that are interested. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thanks, Mr. Speaker, and thanks for that offer from the Premier. I assume he would be willing to present that in writing. I’m sure that

committee would respond positively to that, had we received that.

Given that the Premier has told us that other governments would be open to observers if they also had the opportunity to have observers, would the Premier go back to them and take them up on that offer and push for observer status for elected representatives of any of the governments participating in the Intergovernmental Council? Mahsi.

I’m always pleased to communicate any request of Members of this House to the Intergovernmental Council. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier and I want to follow up on some questions that my colleague Mr. Dolynny asked earlier following up on the statement of the Premier today. I want to, at the outset, indicate that I am very pleased and was pleased to hear the statement from the Premier. It is good news. But one of the things Mr. Dolynny asked had to do with funding and the funding ongoing. The Premier indicated in one of his answers that there were funding reductions for education authorities in this fiscal year, 2014-15, that there would be reductions in 2015-16 and there would be reductions in 2016-17. If phase two and three of the Junior Kindergarten program is not going to be happening, I need to get confirmed from the Premier whether or not there will be reductions to education authorities in 2015-16 and 2016-17. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in the letter, I said the funding model would remain the same for years one and two, which is 2015-16 and 2016-17. The reason for that is we have 23 communities that have implemented Junior Kindergarten. As the Members have requested that we review that immediately and so we have to determine how many of those will no longer participate in the Junior Kindergarten program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Premier for clarifying that. It doesn’t make me happy, however. We are now targeting regional centres’ education authorities and Yellowknife education authorities in a second year for a program which presumably is fully funded in this first year. We have 23 communities now ongoing for Junior Kindergarten. We had reductions from education authorities to

fund the first year and the reduction in the second year was supposed to fund the second year, from what I understand.

The other concern that I have is that this funding is only coming from authorities who have schools greater than 120 students. So we are totally targeting larger schools and larger authorities. Is that correct, that we will be doing reductions in 2015-16 from education authorities who will get nothing for at least another two or three years? Thank you.

As I’ve indicated in my previous responses, we will be re-profiling from all authorities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I don’t think I heard an answer to my question, so I guess school boards are looking forward to reductions in 2015-16 and they aren’t going to get anything back for at least another two or three years.

The Premier referenced surpluses and he referenced the need for particularly the two boards in Yellowknife to use up their surpluses. There are other boards with surpluses. I’d like to ask the Premier if the need to use up surplus to deal with the funding shortfall because of the reductions that are happening, is the need to use up surpluses the same for every education authority or is he looking specifically at Yellowknife? Thank you.

As I said, we would have to revisit it depending on how many of the 23 communities determine that they will not be continuing with Junior Kindergarten. Thank you.