Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments are not dissimilar to those of my colleagues. I will be brief because they’ve pretty much been mentioned.

I want to, at the outset, say that I’m very glad to hear the Minister finally confirmed that any costs to the boards for superintendents to withdraw from NEBS will be covered by the department. That was something that took us a little while to get that confirmed, but I’m very glad to hear that that is now confirmed.

I have the same concerns as a number of my colleagues in bringing superintendents in under the public service. Not that their relationship with either the Minister or the board will change, but I see that there’s going to be a conflict of interest for those superintendents, particularly with regard to policy. If there is a policy which the department or the Minister wishes to put in place – not a directive but just a policy or a change to a program – and the board disagrees with that change, the board will need to rely on their superintendent to speak on their behalf, to do work on their behalf, to get the message through to the department and to the Minister. Yet, at the same time, the superintendent is employed basically by the Minister and will feel obligated not to speak against the government. That’s what most GNWT employees are obligated to do, not to speak against the government.

It’s one thing to say that the board can speak to the Minister and can present their case. That’s all well and good, but board members are volunteers and board members are not involved in the day-to-day operation of the board and of the education authority and superintendents are, so it’s going to be difficult for board chairs to truly fight a policy or a program change without the support of their superintendent. I see that as a problem. Mr. Hawkins referenced a situation where superintendents in the not so distant past were advised not to speak against a particular programming change that was coming down, and the department will have the capability to dictate to superintendents what they can and cannot say, and that’s a very large concern for me.

The only other question I have here, in the Minister’s opening remarks he says that this change will create consistency between the employment status of superintendents and their staff and teachers, and by that I think he meant that they will all be part of the public service. I don’t think we ever talked about this when we discussed this issue at committee, but that sort of consistency in employment status suggests to me that it’s possible that the superintendents may be part of the teachers’ union, and I would like to get that confirmed. If that’s the case, I think that’s fraught with difficulties. That’s really my only question.