Dr. Swann: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. This government constantly boasts about how much better off Alberta is in weathering the recession while refusing to honour teacher contracts, repair aging schools, or adequately support special-needs education. To the Minister of Education: if this government isn't willing to carry out its educational obligations such as bargaining in good faith with our teachers, will you at least provide greater autonomy to locally elected schools boards so that they can provide for their needs?

Mr. Hancock: Mr. Speaker, I don't know where this hon. member has been, but we have not breached any contracts. We have not breached anything in faith with the school boards or the teachers in the province. In fact, we've totally honoured the contracts. What we haven't done this year is budgeted for a 3 per cent increase to the school boards' budgets, and I've done that in the context of talking with school boards about how we work on a longer term plan to deal with the pressures faced by school boards in meeting their negotiated obligations as well as looking at how we better utilize the resources within the system.

Dr. Swann: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the combined Calgary school board infrastructure debt now exceeding a billion dollars, why is the minister not taking advantage of the reduced labour and material costs by investing a portion of the multibillion-dollar sustainability fund to correct a decade of government neglect?

Mr. Hancock: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member will well know, you can only spend the sustainability fund once. You can't spend it over and over again on every single priority he wants to bring forward. I would be the first to argue that school infrastructure is an important priority for us. We've moved forward on the alternative procurement program 1, where schools are going to be available even earlier than was anticipated and available for opening this fall in both Calgary and Edmonton, nine schools in each jurisdiction. That's pretty good. ASAP 2 is progressing towards a very quick announcement, indicating we've made good use of resources, a good use of the public purse in putting schools where we need them.

Dr. Swann: Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Given that our most vulnerable students are those with special needs, why is this government fostering greater uncertainty by freezing their per-pupil funding grants and recklessly abandoning a coding system for special-needs children?

Mr. Hancock: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should go back and read the good report that was done by a task force chaired by the Member for Edmonton-Ellerslie, which clearly sets out a change in direction that's needed with respect to how we assure that every child in Alberta is included in the education system and that every child in Alberta has the opportunity to maximize their own personal potential. That takes some work to move. Some people would move it ahead of that process, but this is not an easy process. It's going to take time. It's going to take some work to implement. It doesn't behoove anybody to jump ahead of the process, to talk about removing coding or making changes, those sorts of things. Funding is, of course, important, and funding is being provided.