Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as part of the Standing Committee on Social Development that was tasked with doing the review and seeking a public process and consultations on the two key amendments that were being proposed, first, of course was JK and the other one was on the instructional hours, I know the report has been done. I thank my colleagues in the House for bringing that report, and I understand we're going to keep talking; more likely the substance of the report later on, but for the most part, what was troubling for me was to hear parents, the quote right off the bat was just, I'm just looking at my notes fairly quickly. One parent made the comment that it was disheartening to learn of the, just perhaps some of the bungling, if I could use that term, in terms of communicating the agreement between the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association and the department in terms of instructional hours. That stood out in my mind in terms of some of the speakers. Of course, these are parents that have the best interests of their children in mind. At the same time, you know, the other comments to say that, well, the status quo is not workable but they need to make some changes. It was a balancing act to try to listen to all the concerns that we have to field throughout the communities that we had visited.
Coming from a small community, it's good that we have large regions and a city like Yellowknife, where you have an abundance of teachers and some very successful rates, successful achievement rates, that we can be all proud of, but, in smaller communities, it's very challenging. In some respects, we lag behind in terms of academic achievements in terms of how our students are doing in the smaller communities and then to consider the idea of reducing this task from instructional hours. That's hard to take. Frame that in as perhaps the concern and hearing the other concerns that were made. It was almost a balancing act that the committee had, but of course, the most prominent was trying to work with and negotiate an agreement between, of course, the department and the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association and bringing that forth to the parents and to the community and in one respect, the teacher support obviously. The parents were very concerned in terms of how it is that they have to maybe fill in the time that, you know, the need to schedule in in terms of their daily lives and how the needs of their children's well-being is going to be met. It was very challenging, but for the most part what I heard was funding has to be a full commitment from this department, especially for JK. At the same time, we need to seriously mark and flag the idea that we need more teachers and more resources for schools. That, for me, was what stood out very clear. We need to make it a priority as we close off the chapter on this and moving forward. I look forward to the other debates and discussions that might follow from my colleagues for that. Mahsi.