Thanks, Mr. Chair. I will try this one more time. I will try to make it as easy as I can. I went quickly through the 2017 school funding framework. I have identified the specific formulas that do not include junior kindergarten and they are as follows:

Administration

i. Administration staffing

iii. District education authority O and M

Territorial schools

iii. School support consultants

iv. School counselling

v. School secretaries

vi. Custodians

Inclusive schooling

iv. Support assistance

vi. Staff development

vii. Specialized learning materials, assistive technologies

x. Healing and counselling

Aboriginal Language and Cultural Programs

i. Aboriginal language O and M

ii. Education assistance and Aboriginal language specialists

Those are the formulas that do not include junior kindergarten students. Can the Minister commit to using his projections of JK students, plugging them into those formulas, and telling us what the additional incremental costs would be? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Under the Education Act, it requires that, when providing operation and maintenance funds to education bodies, the Department of Culture, Education and Employment must allow for a student ratio of 16 to 1. Funding for inclusive schooling supports equals to 15 per cent of all operations and maintenance funds provided in a financial year.

In terms of inclusive schooling, we do add our students. There is a good chance that we will still be above the legislated levels, and adding junior kindergarten, we will still be around somewhere like 13.1 or 13.4, so we will still be overfunding moving forward. We could look at it. We are still going to have funds that are not going to reach the legislated levels on how we fund the operating and maintenance of our education bodies. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think I heard "look at it" at the end there. Is the Minister committing to do the work and providing us with the information? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said, we will take a look at it. When we do get the funds back, it is still going to be under, but we fund the ratio of 16 to 1. With the inclusive schooling, we will still be funding above what we fund for inclusive schooling. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Does the Minister have any sense of how long taking a look at it is going to take? Is this something that his department is prepared to give us in a week or two, or how long would it take to have the work done? I think it is plugging a few numbers into some formulas and getting calculations out the other end and comparing it to what it would be without JK. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What I can commit to is that we will work with our education authorities, as we have created an accountability framework in reporting for our education authorities on how they spend their dollars for the 2017-2018 school year, and get those exact figures as we move forward. Right now, we are still looking at how many numbers we are going to get, but we can commit to working with our education authorities and getting those exact numbers and providing those reports as we do every year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Clearly the Minister is not going to answer this the way that I want him to. He is not going to do the work. I will have to find another avenue. Perhaps a written question will be the proper way to do this because he is just not cooperating, and it is quite disappointing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Clause 2.

Thank you, committee. Clause 3.

Thank you, committee. Clause 4. Ms. Green.

Mr. Chair, I would like to propose a motion to amend clause 4(b), and I believe that the text will be distributed at this time. The amended subsection will read that paragraph 4(b) of Bill 16 be amended by striking out 945 hours and substituting 1,000 hours.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Motion is in order and being distributed. To the motion, Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am going to refer to the memorandum of understanding that was agreed between the Northwest Territories Teachers' Association and the Government of the Northwest Territories on Strengthening Teacher Instructional Practise, and I am going to quote a segment of the MOU here. It says, and I quote, "During the life of this collective agreement, the association and the employer agree to work together to explore a range of evidence-based possibilities that may have a positive impact on teacher effectiveness and improved student outcomes. This could include changes to the Education Act and the implementation and subsequent evaluation of structured pilot projects. These pilot projects would include a focus on redirecting up to 100 instructional hours per school year." End of the section that I am quoting there.

Mr. Chair, this is not what happened. We, as a group of MLAs, were not given a range of options. We were given one option, which is Bill 16, the bill in front of us. What we learned through this process is that this initiative does not come from the education renewal initiative. In fact, it is more likely that it came out of negotiations, and that it was an add-on to satisfy legitimate, and I am going to repeat that, legitimate concerns teachers have about their own wellness. We, of course, want teachers to be well and to be ready to do the innumerable tasks which we now require of them in the classroom. But, as I said earlier, we were not presented a range of options. We were given our marching orders, and we were expected to comply with them.

What we need here is more teachers, simply put. We, as I have already said, expect a tremendous amount from our teachers. The classroom has become a much more complex place than it was when I graduated almost 40 years ago. Teachers are required to take into account so many more student needs and to accommodate them in ways that certainly were not acknowledged in my era, and that is not a bad thing, but there is a limit to what they can do. I want to say that we have had a tremendous amount of input from the teachers on the student instructional practice. I would like to correct the record in saying that there were 27 submissions rather than 230 formal submissions on this bill, but I also have to say that I received at least as many personal e-mails from both teachers and parents on this issue, and I know that many of my colleagues did as well. The people who were least heard from were the parents, and even less than them, the students. They seemed to be running behind afterwards because they did not have the communication in a proactive way, whether that is the responsibility of the school boards or whether that was the responsibility of the department.

Not surprisingly, they were very concerned about the parity of the high school diploma granted by the NWT with that granted by Alberta as the two jurisdictions share a common curriculum as we all know. The Yellowknife Catholic School Board responded to this question about providing certainty to parents by passing a motion at its February board meeting saying that they would not reduce hours at St. Patrick High School here in Yellowknife lower than 1,000 in order to maintain that parity. Their argument was that the students all write the same exams, and that they needed to have equal access to preparation. The comparison with Alberta is really the only one that matters here because we teach the same curriculum. The comparison to other jurisdictions in Canada is not relevant. When the department came to brief the standing committee on this bill in February, the deputy minister confirmed that parity was an important issue, and she pledged that it would be in place. In an attempt to find a middle ground between ensuring that teachers are not only well, but they have the time to collaborate and to engage in professional development, and that parents have the certainty that their children in high school will receive the same number of instructional hours as children in Alberta. My proposal is to reduce the instructional hours, not by 100 but by 45. The original act says 1045. I am suggesting 1000. That gives teachers an additional 45 hours to spend on ways to improve their own health and their outcomes, and it would provide certainty for parents that there is parity with Alberta.

Now, this MOU is not the collective agreement. It is a pilot project. What the department has done is just moved directly into legislating this change. I do not think that is the right thing to do. I think that we should maintain parity with Alberta for high school, and we should evaluate, and I know the department is coming forward with an evaluation plan. Evaluate how this is rolling out before we reduce the hours any further. We also need to keep in mind that Alberta is going through this exercise as well. They may also decide that they want the change in their current mandatory minimums, and so that may prompt changes further in the future.

Just to summarize, the intention of this motion is to find a middle ground between the certainty that parents told us they wanted for their children's education, and the wellness that the teachers' said that they need in order to find their work satisfying, and the outcomes for their students satisfying as well. For that reason, I am putting forward this motion. I have already had significant consultation on this motion with my colleagues. It is my understanding that they will not be supporting it, but I think it is important that we acknowledge that we also heard from parents that they have this issue, that it is a valid issue, that we have heard them, and in the case of this motion by me, that I support them in wanting to have this standard of education for their children. Those are my comments, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Green. To the motion, Mr. Thompson.

Sorry, to me, or to Minister Moses? Sorry, confusion here.

To the motion, Mr. Thompson.