Charles now owes money for child care and still does not have enough to feed his family. I wish I could say this story has a happy ending, but Charles is having a hard time seeing a way out.

This is what I mean when I talk about poverty traps. Our Income Security programs are inadequate and the built-in clawbacks create a disincentive to work. I must point out again, that rather than providing the stable home children need to succeed, living in a poverty trap means toxic stress, leading to delays in early childhood development that will, sadly, be costly for all and for lifetimes.

This morning I heard CBC’s Lorne McInnes asking the Auditor General’s office what the story was behind his devastating report. Poverty traps are part of the story behind the Auditor General’s long list of failures in the way this government, of which I am currently a part, are fulfilling our fiduciary duty to look after the children.

I will have questions. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Standing committees of the Legislative Assembly are where the Regular Members of the Legislative Assembly roll up their sleeves and get down to work on behalf of the people of the NWT.

As the chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations, I’m pleased to advise the public and the House of the work that is underway in this committee. The committee just completed an extensive public review of the GNWT’s public accounts for 2012-2013 and tabled its report on that review in the House just a few weeks ago.

We have also just completed our public review of the Annual Report of the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission for 2012-2013 and we look forward to tabling a report on the review before the end of this session.

In the coming weeks, the Standing Committee on Government Operations will be undertaking two more reviews that members of the public will be invited to participate in. The first, we will be holding a public meeting to prepare a review of the 2012-2013 Annual Report of the Northwest Territories Information and Privacy Commissioner and we look forward to tabling the report in the spring session.

Similarly, plans are underway to publicly review the Report of the Auditor General on the Department of Health and Social Services Child and Family Services Program in April 2014.

The Standing Committee on Government Operations is also prepared to undertake the five-year review of the Northwest Territories Official Languages Act. The standing committee will be meeting with members of the public and interested parties on this important review, and we look forward to updating the public and the Members of this House as this work progresses.

Standing committees work hard to hold government accountable for its spending and its performance, with the intent of improving services provided to NWT residents. I invite anyone who is interested in the work of the standing committees to keep their eyes open for notices of standing committee meetings that are published in the newspaper, or to take a look at the reports of the standing committees which are published on the Legislative Assembly’s website. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. I’d like to welcome all the visitors here in the public gallery here today. Thanks for taking an interest in our proceedings.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll follow up with questions from my Member’s statement about the Hay River DEA and the school swap. My questions are for the Minister of Education. In the meeting some people had some questions about the financial rationale behind the school swap.

Can the Minister indicate to me what they expect this school swap to cost the Department of Education?

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We first initiated the discussion with the Hay River DEA and, of course, the Commission scolaire francophone on the whole idea that we have yet to go through the appeals process with the court. It was just exploratory discussions that we’ve had, and obviously, my officials met with the chair of the DEA and the parents that represented the Hay River DEA. So those are the discussions we’ve been having.

From the board’s perspective, we’ll work with the community and my department. To date, we’re compiling the information on what the expenditure would be on the school swap because it would

depend on the facility itself, the spaces. So that is information that we are currently compiling from the DEA with my department. Mahsi.

I would like the Minister to also include some of that analysis of the costs, I guess the cost of the whole process. What have they put into legal fees, what are they going to have to put into the school swap? We know the cost, $28 million for both schools in both communities, $13 million for Hay River.

Would the Minister commit to giving us a full analysis of what the government has spent on this whole fiasco, I guess?

Mahsi. The Member is correct about the $28 million. That’s, overall, the target that we are working with between Hay River and Yellowknife. Again, we are compiling the financial background on how much we’ve expended on this particular school swap and then also the court appeals and so forth. So, I can assure the Member that they will receive that information. Mahsi.

Obviously, our Hay River DEA and the French school were concerned about the repercussions now.

Now that the DEA has said that they’re not interested in signing the MOU, what will the Department of Education do going forward, what are the expectations of Cabinet and what are the expectations of the GNWT to go forward? Thank you.

Mahsi. We just heard last night from the Member, of course, both Members, that the Hay River DEA is not in a position to move forward on a school swap. From their meeting with the parents, my understanding is that there was a great turnout from the general public and I must commend them for having the engagement of the public. We have not heard back from the Commission scolaire francophone, who are meeting in Hay River with the parents tonight. So we will be hearing from them and until we hear back from them, there are no decisions on the next steps as of yet. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know they’ve put some deadlines on the DEA, and obviously, I look forward to hearing what happens in Hay River tonight. I apologize, I can’t make it, but I guess the question is that, going forward, we know that there are some dates coming up in March that are very important and key.

When will the Minister get back to us on these numbers and on the decision going forward on this issue? Thank you.

Mahsi. The Member is quite correct; there is a deadline we have to meet. I believe it’s March 24. Those are the court dates that we have to follow through with. Part of the plan will be to meet with both Hay River MLAs. I was hoping sometime next week to give them the status of what’s happening and what will be the next step, so I will be briefing both Members.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are also for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I have a lot of questions, but let me start in my little preamble, my short preamble to say that we talk, as a government, about regional capacity and building capacity. Part of that capacity building in Hay River is our schools, and right now I realize that the occupancy levels in our schools are not as high as they could be, and I think that’s what left the door open for this idea of this swap, but I do want to say that with this government’s commitment to decentralization and some of the economic initiatives that are on the horizon in Hay River, we are going to need all four of our schools. I would like to ask the Minister if he has, well, it sounds like the decision to pursue the school swap idea pre-empted a lot of numbers being put together. I don’t want to talk about Yellowknife. Yellowknife has seven MLAs; they can look after Yellowknife. I want to talk about Hay River. Okay?

Are there preliminary estimates on what it would cost to build? As per the court order, what would need to be built at Ecole Boreale? Do they have preliminary cost estimates?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I believe Member Bouchard also mentioned approximately $13 million. If there are no alternatives to building an addition to Ecole Boreale in Hay River, the cost to the NWT will be approximately $13 million. That’s the number that we’ve been working with with the DEA and commission with my department. Those are just some of the numbers that we have been working with.

I, like my colleague, would also like to know what money we’ve already spent on looking at the school swap and what kind of money we have spent trying to fight building a gymnasium for Ecole Boreale. I mean, that would be an interesting number and I hope that the Minister could possibly be forthcoming with that. I think we should stop spending that money and we

should start spending money on planning to build a new facility.

The deadline, again, that my colleague spoke of, Minister Lafferty refers to March 24th . I would like to

ask the Minister, is there a date before that, even within the next few days, where there is a decision imminently going to be made by this government and by this Cabinet?

Once we hear back from Commission scolaire francophone on the outcome of their meeting tonight, then we will be updating both MLAs. Eventually – the Member is quite correct – we need to make a decision by the Cabinet prior to March 24th what will be the next

step. I will be briefing both Members sometime next week at the earliest possibility.

I do realize that they need to hear from the French school board, but the MOU proposed to the DEA, we’ve been officially notified by the chair that this has been rejected.

I’d like to ask the Minister, just for the benefit of people in Hay River to know, by what date would this Cabinet be making a decision on what avenue they are going to take to proceed? I know that the court deadline is March 24th . By what date does this

Cabinet need to make a decision to expend the $13 million to build the gymnasium for Hay River?

Again, keeping in mind that obviously March 24th is the date that we

need to make this a priority to government to make a decision, and I need to present that to my Cabinet colleagues, possibly we have Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. Those are the discussions that we need to have with the Cabinet on what will be the next steps. But I want to inform the Regular Members prior to that, sit down with them and this is what we’ve heard, what should we do as the next steps. Those are the discussions we need to have prior to me going to my Cabinet colleagues. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.