What is the council doing wrong? I have no idea, Mr. Speaker, what the council is doing wrong. In fact, for the last two years, I have been asking the council to meet with them. The council has only met during session, and I have gone to them when I can meet with them. It is during session, and I have only been able to go in for a lunch hour and say hi and leave to come running right back to session.

I have asked them over the last two years that I want to meet with them. I have given no direction, period, to the Status of Women Council. I know that I have been accused of giving directions, but I have given none. In fact, the only conversation I have had was asking them to have a meeting when it is not in session so I would be able to talk to them about what they were doing and how we could work together, but to this day, that has not happened.

I did phone the president the other day, and she is wanting to meet with me, as well, but to this day, I have given no direction, period, to the Status of Women Council, nor have I met with them, other than to attend a quick dinner before I return to session.

I am puzzled by that response, because, on March 12^th in this House the Minister said that she had met with them at that point a couple of weeks ago, and they had been reviewing their budget and so on and so forth. This is all available in Hansard.

Where is this direction coming from, if not from the Minister, to change the mandate or the work of the Status of Women?

Yes, during one of the dinner events that I went to, I did tell them at that time that I wanted to meet with them, that I wanted to have at least a four-hour meeting that we could actually talk about the direction and how we could work together. I did meet with them, and like I had said earlier, I also met with them during lunch hours, but it was only a matter of going in, saying a cordial "glad to work with you," and then I had to run back. I don't really consider those actually directional meetings, and nor should I, because it is not my authority to give direction to them.

The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre actually brought it up to me the other day and stated that she had heard that the Status of Women Council had decided to stop chairing the Family Violence Coalition.

Mr. Speaker, I would never give direction to stop working with the Family Violence Coalition. I am a child of violence, not a slap on the hand, of fists and boots and knives and guns and hospitals and RCMP detachments. I know family violence, I have lived family violence, and I would never stop anyone from addressing that issue.

I called the president because I had concerns, and the president told me. She said that they are looking at a strategic plan. They need to review things because, she said, 75 per cent of their time was donated to just supporting the Family Violence Coalition. That's half a million dollars in funding that we are giving; 75 per cent was going to that. I never gave direction to stop. The council themselves wanted to look into it to see if that is the best use of their resources.

Mr. Speaker, at no point have I given direction to stop. In fact, when the MLA from Yellowknife Centre asked me that a couple of days ago, I replied via email and, actually, in conversation stated that I never gave direction to stop. I do take a little bit of offence that I have been accused of it, because at no time have I ever, nor at no time would I ever, give any direction to stop combatting family violence. We have huge family violence rates in the Northwest Territories. It is an issue we need to deal with.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't question the Minister's commitment to eradicating family violence, but there is a great deal of confusion around who is taking the leadership on this file. The Status of Women Council feels that it is no longer their job. It was their job for 19 years because they are at arm's length, and they are in a unique advocacy role. What is the Minister going to do, then, to put right this issue of the drifting coalition against family violence? Thank you.

As stated, I did phone the president and was asking where the direction came from, recognizing that she does have the authority to direct the council and to direct the staffing, as the speaker for the whole board. Where did the direction come from? That is something that they are looking at.

I did take note that the MLA did state within her opening statement that it is arm's length, and it needs to be arm's length. Our act says that they can advise the Minister on issues, and I can refer them back to the council for consideration. It says that they can provide assistance to the Minister in promoting change to ensure the attainment of equality of women. That's what it states. I can give some support to them. I can ask them to help me. I can ask them to look into things, but at no time do I see in this act that I can tell them, "This is what you do in your day-to-day in operations." In fact, there are "mays" in this act that say they may do other things.

The Status of Women Council needs to have autonomy so that they can decide what they are doing best with the resources that they have. I can give suggestions, but I will not direct them. They need to be able to do what they want to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions will be to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment today. In my Member's statement, you heard me talk about the community in Sambaa K'e, about their school expansion and the issue about the gym. My first question to the Minister: the architects in the department made a commitment to come back and give them alternative options there. Has the department provided these options to the community? Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Most Members know that I just took over this portfolio a month ago, and so I didn't know what was going on before that time. However, I did ask the department, and they told me that no options were developed specifically for the community. However, at a community expansion meeting held in October 2017, the department confirmed that there was sufficient space on the land reserve where a larger community gym could be built. I don't believe, according to my notes, that they looked at different options, but they did reaffirm that the space that the school was on could actually support a larger gym if that was what the community wanted. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister for that answer. I realize she wasn't the one in there, but my big problem is that the community was promised to have some alternatives in the expansion. We will probably have to disagree with that, and we will probably have to try to get the Minister in there.

My next question, though, is in regard to this. Without having a good gym in this community, we have a safety issue. How is the department working with the community and the school to ensure that they have quality and safe education programs in the school?

Quality and safe education in the community; I am guessing you are meaning facilities in the community. Student safety is a primary focus within all education systems in the Northwest Territories. Every school has a safety plan. We make sure that we take care of the children as best as possible. Incidents will occasionally happen. As soon as incidents happen, we go in. We do an investigation. We make sure that that issue hopefully wouldn't happen again. We look for solutions for that. I know that, if there are issues with gyms, et cetera, if we don't have that support, then we look at other ways within the communities that we can actually provide the activities, physical activities for children, but still making sure that they are supervised within a safe manner.

I might be a little bit confused about the MLA's question, but I am trying to answer it the best that I can.

I apologize to the Minister. Maybe I should write the questions and send them to her so that I get clearer direction of what I am trying to ask. So I must apologize to the Minister for that. I am hearing a lot that the government is not going to put a gym in this community because of the population there, so will the department work with the community to come up with a plan, and, if that plan involves going to the federal government, will they work with the community to actually approach the federal government to provide a gym, a community gym, so they can have safe, quality recreation programs?

Gyms are important in communities. Children need to have physical activity, so the Department of Education does try to make sure that there is some kind of facility. In communities where there are under 150 students, it is not feasible at this time to actually put in a school gym, so what the department does in that case, they try to work with the community to make sure that there is activity to a facility that children can access as a gym. So, in that community, I know that they are looking at building a new gym or extending it, so, in that case, we are more than willing to work with the community.

I should state, though, that it's not only working with the community. We will work with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs because, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, their mandate is to actually work with community governments to access federal funding for capital projects. How do I know that? I just happen to know that, Mr. Speaker. So I promise I will work closely with the community and with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs to address the need for a community gym.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I understand what the Minister has said, and I thank her for that. I know the reality. I was there when they built it. It was a community hall, and they expanded it to make it a "community gym." It's not a community gym. It's a large meeting room. So, the Minister, I know she is really busy because of a lot of work that she has to do over this summer. Is she willing to work with me to go into the community, have a sit-down with the community, discuss it, see for herself what the community is talking about, and see what the department is calling a gym right now? Will she make that commitment?

As a Minister, my responsibility is to represent all communities and all residents of the Northwest Territories. I would be more than honoured to actually go with the Member to the community to actually work with the community and see what we can do to support them. As the Member stated, my schedule is very busy over the summer with all of the graduations that are taking place, but as soon as we can find a mutually agreeable time, I am more than willing to go in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Member's statement, my question is to the Premier, Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs. With the growing employees in the Sahtu region and departments, can the Honourable Premier elaborate and give consideration to the position for a Sahtu regional director? Mahsi.

Masi. The Honourable Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the 16^th Legislative Assembly, the Government of the Northwest Territories had five regional directors, including a regional director for the Sahtu, and, in the 16^th Legislative Assembly, the government of the day saw fit to reduce the number of regional directors from five to two, so we have a north and a south regional director. It was seen as a cost-saving measure, and, also, the fact is that, at that time, it was felt that the workload did not justify the need for a regional director in every region.

The 16^th Assembly to the 18^th, two Assemblies later; in consideration of our physical positive position, would the Premier reconsider this reinstatement for this position here before the end of the 18^th?

Through decentralization and a number of other Government of the Northwest Territories initiatives, the programs and service delivery is being done by departments and agencies in the Sahtu, and we have recently increased the management with the superintendent of infrastructure position, so now all Department of Infrastructure projects and issues are managed out of the Sahtu regional office.

Thanks to the Premier for that response. Talking about projects and employees, they are two different things here. It seems to me that, where we are growing in the Sahtu, thanks to the government to date, as mentioned in the statement, we have grown to 375 employees, but the challenge in the Sahtu is communicating to the surrounding communities when in most cases there is only annual access. So, given that challenge, would the Premier consider reinstatement prior to the end of the 18^th to that position?