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

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My department met with the school boards and called every school board to identify what their financial situation will be with each and every school board. Mahsi.

I guess I have to assume, since the Minister isn’t answering my question, that the answer to my question is yes, it’s a negative impact on school boards. Using numbers from the department itself, numbers that have been agreed to by school districts and also Education, Culture and Employment, Yellowknife Catholic Schools will see a reduction in their budget as follows: $277,000 in year one; $744,000 in year two; $1.137 million in year three. In year three, as the Minister stated yesterday, they will get funding for junior kindergarten of $960,000. The end result is a budget reduction of $177,000. Add in the one-time top up to keep PTR at 16 to 1, which the Minister and the school boards agree with, the net result is a budget increase of $580,000. The Minister left out the revenue losses that Yellowknife Catholic Schools will face, unfortunately. If you add in those revenue losses from the preschool program that they run, and I forget what the other one is, the net result is a deficit of $436,000.

I would like to ask the Minister, does he agree with me that this one school board, as an example, will suffer a considerable hit to their budget?

What the Member is referring to is revenue generation through business. That was at the discretion of the school board to decide a few years back to offer…now it will be called JK, junior kindergarten. So, obviously, again, it will be up to the parents to decide. The school board has two years to decide on that. So, Mr. Speaker, those are the discussions that we’ve had both with YK1 and YCS and NWT school boards on these implications. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

To the Minister, yes, they are numbers, but they are numbers that have been agreed to by the department and the school board.

I made mention yesterday of some conflicting statements in the fact sheets. I need to ask the Minister again the same questions to clarify what his answer was and which one of the statements in the fact sheets is correct.

When a district implements a junior kindergarten program in the fall of 2014, for example, and it would not be in Yellowknife but one of our small communities, will the school district that is running that program receive funding for those new JK students in the year the program starts or a year later as is the usual practice now according to the school funding formula? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as has been indicated in this House, the PTR funding has been re-profiled across the Northwest Territories on a three-year phased approach. If an individual community is delivering the programming to the community and there’s a surplus of students that accidentally show up, those students would be identified through extraordinary funding through my department, my shop. We would provide that to the school board and it would be up to school board, at their discretion, if they’re going to hire an additional teacher or not, based on the funding we provide to them, based on the number of student enrolment. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure if the Minister didn’t understand my question or if he’s trying to avoid answering it. I was not talking about extraordinary funding; I was talking about junior kindergarten students starting a program.

The Minister spoke yesterday about per student funding and he mentioned that as the NWT, compared to Canada, we get a great deal more. We do fund our school districts better than the provinces, but we are very close to the funding announced for our sister territories, which you omitted to mention.

In looking at the fact sheet, it looks like the per student amount includes capital funding dollars. If that’s the case, it’s no wonder our number is higher. Apart from having higher operating costs in the North, we certainly have higher costs to build in the North.

Can the Minister please tell me if the $22,000 per student figure that he quoted yesterday includes capital as well as O and M dollars? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated in this House, the $22,000 per student is one of the best in the country and we will continue to be proud of that and we will continue to invest even more in those areas. However we justify the number, we’re the best in the country. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just going to follow up from some questions yesterday that were brought into the House, asking the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about the Northern Communications Society. I’ll switch it up here a little bit and give him a break from answering these junior kindergarten questions.

I recently had some meetings with some of the individuals from the Northern Communications Society and they informed me that there was a proposal given to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment back in December. As Members know, we didn’t go through a business planning process when we went through our operations budget for February and March. Not seeing it in the main estimates during our operations budgeting, I just want to ask the Minister, was that proposal incorporated into the main estimates for operations, and if not, what is the update on that proposal and can we see some kind of action on it in this fiscal year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We have been working with the CEO of NCS over the years and working with the federal government on their behalf as well. We have bent over backwards to deal with their financial situation. We provide funding on an annual basis, based on the reporting mechanism. There are some challenges we’re faced with within their management, within the federal government, within GNWT working with both parties. We will continue to provide those annual contributions. The proposal has been submitted to us. We are ready to release the funding, but there are some areas of challenges we’re faced with within the organization, but we’re trying to resolve those at this point. The federal government is of the same view as well. We are working very closely with NCS on this particular subject. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I recall maybe a couple sessions ago, or maybe a few sessions ago, I did bring up some questions about funding to the NCS. I know one of the challenges that occurred was their reporting. Yesterday in the House the Minister stated that the reporting was good and that they were getting reporting on time.

Can I ask the Minister, just for clarity for myself and clarity for the staff at NCS, what are those challenges and what kind of challenges are keeping

us from giving this organization the funding to get our information from the government into the communities through five of the Aboriginal languages that they broadcast in to people of the Northwest Territories? What are those challenges?

Mr. Speaker, part of the challenge, obviously, with NCS is their financial situation due to the fact that revenue from the federal government is not consistent or delivered in time. Due to that fact, there is a deficit situation. If we as the GNWT provide funding, it gets chewed up by the deficit. We don’t want that. We want the money directly to the Aboriginal broadcasting so they can continue their job. Those are some of the challenges I’m faced with as the Minister when I want to release the funds.

Again, it’s a very serious issue that we’re dealing with, with the CEO of NCS, and we’ll continue to do that. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Knowing full well that this government does support the Aboriginal languages and that this organization in particular does broadcast in five Aboriginal languages, this government should take some responsibility in ensuring that information is given out to residents of the Northwest Territories through this media opportunity. We’re making decisions, waiting for funding from the feds when the feds might not even know how this organization is operating and the effectiveness of this organization to get the messages out.

I think the big problem with the NCS is that bridge funding from the end of the fiscal year to when they get that funding. I know that the government does do contribution agreements with them; they are looking at that proposal. Why can’t we speed up the process, knowing full well that they get their reports in on time and that they do give out good messages to residents of the Northwest Territories? Why can’t we get that funding to NCS sooner than later? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think the real challenge is with the federal government because I believe they are a year or two behind. We provide funding, again, based on their reporting mechanism. That’s an area that we are working out with the management of the NCS.

At the end of the day, there is a challenge before us, but we are working very closely with the CEO to resolve that issue. My department met with the CEO just last week to identify some of the options. Once the information is available to me, I can definitely be sharing with the standing committee just an update of the situation with NCS. We want that organization to continue broadcasting in all official languages and I fully support that as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we talk about the federal government, we have this program with CanNor, and CanNor has done a lot of great projects throughout the Northwest Territories. One of the issues and challenges for Northern Communications Society is their community transmitters. As Mr. Dolynny stated yesterday, they’re operating on a shoestring budget, but he was talking about we’re a digital watch society and, so, Timex and digital. You know, get the information out a lot sooner than later.

Would the Minister lobby, on behalf of the Northern Communications Society, with CanNor to lobby for that funding so we can upgrade our community transmitters throughout the Northwest Territories? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I totally agree with the Member. I have been doing that since I got on board in 2007 as the Education Minister, because we knew that this was a real challenge that NCS was faced with. Losing our language in the Gwich’in area is a prime example. We’ve been investing into NCS. We knew the federal was kind of lacking in the reporting mechanism or contribution, so I met then with the Minister of Heritage, Minister Moore, to share that information and share our concern. I spoke as an advocate for NCS. I will continue to do that with the new Minister, Shelly Glover. As soon as I get positive results, I will be sharing with the standing committee. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Returning to the topic at hand, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment made statements in the House yesterday, which despite bemoaning the lack of facts, fell far short of the full truth on school board funding and junior kindergarten. Because of those omissions, the statements were very misleading and unhelpful. The Minister presented, again, only some of the facts, those recognizing budget increases demanded by the Education Act to meet legislated PTR rations, but he ignored the net impacts of his total funding plans which yield substantial and cumulative net losses in funding to school boards.

Why is the Minister continuing to give statements that confuse rather than provide full information on this issue?