Thanks, Mr. Chair. First off, I'd like to thank my colleague from Yellowknife Centre for bringing forward the motion. I think I heard many of the same concerns from parents that she has. I think this was an attempt to try to find some middle ground or some kind of a compromise here and ensure Alberta equivalency and I commend her for bringing it forward. It's very important that the public hear the debate and discussion around this matter because it's still a live concern with many parents. I can agree with my colleague from Yellowknife Centre to a certain point. She said many of the same things that I said in my opening remarks on the bill itself that the change in instructional hours was not found in the education renewal. This was driven by the fiscal strategy of Cabinet, the compromise that was reached at the negotiating table, and I believe we need to get back to the education renewal initiative as the way of bringing forward further change to our educational system.
I agree that we need to invest more in our school system. Unfortunately, this bill has only given us one way of dealing with the issue of teachers being overworked and that's reducing instructional hours. I guess I can vaguely remember back to my time in the 1970s when I applied for university. The thing that you submit when you want to get into colleague and university is your transcript, the courses you took, and the marks that you got in them. That's the basis on which universities and colleges accept students. There's nothing in there about instructional hours. I'm not convinced that this amendment will change in any way the ability of our students to gain entry into universities or colleges.
The last thing, I guess, I wish to say is that as I understand it, the Alberta system – their high school level there – instructional hours are in a state of flux themselves. I think it's very difficult to specify what exactly Alberta equivalency is at this point in time let alone probably any point in time. For those reasons, I don't think I can support – I will not be supporting the motion but I do sincerely thank my colleague for bringing this matter forward for the debate and discussion on the floor today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.