Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The chair of the public school board is asking whether cabinet ministers will be reducing their own ranks in line with the planned merger of education, health and housing boards in the territory.

The question was one of many posed by Duff Spence, chair of Yk Education District No.1, in a letter to Health Minister Sandy Lee, dated Nov. 6.

The NWT's cabinet is made up of seven MLAs. The departments relating to education, health and housing each have their own ministers. Last month, Michael Miltenberger, the cabinet minister heading the government's "re-focusing committee" announced all public boards in the territory administering programs in these three areas will be merged together to form six regional boards by 2011. In Yellowknife, that means the public and Catholic school boards will merge with health and housing authorities in the North Slave.

"Will this board report to one minister or three ministers," said Spence.

"We want to know if the GNWT will rationalize how they deliver programs. If you get one pot of money is it all up for grabs? Do medical travel concerns trump education concerns? Right now you have the three departments that get their own money but it muddies the water if you bring the three together. This could take away money from the kids and put into health. I'm fearful of that."

The Yk1 and Catholic school boards met with Yellowknife MLAs Wednesday to discuss the merger.

"Our goal is to identify our questions and work with the MLAs to get our questions answered," said Spence.

Spence's letter also asks whether MLAs will vote on the board mergers in the legislative assembly, and whether board members will be appointed or elected as the current practice is for Yellowknife school boards.

"Right now being an elected board we're much more responsive and effective," said Spence.

"If you're appointed, you're responsible to the minister, if you're elected you're responsible to the people. How will that affect the level of education? The reporting dynamics change. What we have isn't broke. Let's not try and fix it if we don't have to. What are we trying to achieve here?"

Great Slave MLA Glen Abernethy said there is shared concern about what is going to happen.

"They're mostly concerned if the research has been done to make sure they maintain the quality of education that's being provided currently," he said. "There is some confusion about what kind of investigation they've already done. The Catholic board is protected constitutionally under the territorial act so how do you roll that in? Different acts support their existence. It's a lot of 'what-ifs.'"

The francophone school board did not attend Wednesday's meeting because they said it is their constitutional right to administer their own education and don't expect the board merger will affect them.

Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay said with complications like this arising there is little doubt the matter will wind up in court.

"Make no mistake about it, that's where we are heading if the government wants to impose its will," he said. "People aren't going to stand for it and they're going to stand up and fight. If I was a board member, I'd be taking them to court, too."

Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro said considering that Catholic and French education is constitutionally protected, trying to include those groups in the merger may not be worth it.

"I don't see a value in the GNWT going to court over the amalgamation of boards," said Bisaro. "It's not taking us in the direction we want to go and it's possible we might be going that way."

Miltenberger did not return phone calls.