Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I do realize that I could have been a little bit clearer in my answers to questions on junior kindergarten yesterday. I do apologize for that.

Junior kindergarten is expected to cost $5.1 million to implement. The additional $2.7 million that was announced, along with the original investment of $1.5 million, plus $900,000 that we've identified internally within the department, will cover the implementation costs. We are committed to continue working with the superintendents and the District Education Councils towards the smooth implementation of junior kindergarten...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government does support a lot of youth initiatives right across all departments within the governments. MACA, obviously, is one of the bigger supporters in the youth program. We feel that all our programs address the needs of youth across the Northwest Territories, right into our smallest communities. We have the NWT Youth Ambassadors Program, which has been very successful. Both my departments and the Department of MACA work together to support and fund the Northern Youth Abroad Program.

We have various programs that communities can access funding. As I mentioned...

As I mentioned, Mr. Speaker, we are going to have to have those discussions with the superintendent and the board chairs. When we first initially rolled out junior kindergarten, as you know, 23 communities did the uptake, and some of them couldn't do it because they didn't have any four-year-olds. That is going to reflect the operational costs as we fund junior kindergarten moving forward. Those initial discussions have to happen before we can look at how we are going to be using that additional funding that was announced yesterday in the budget. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, it is great news, and I am glad the Member is getting calls because it has been quite the announcement that we made yesterday. As I mentioned, our department is working with all the superintendents and the education authorities to look at how we are going to be allocating this additional funding. I can't give him a timeline until we have those discussions with the superintendents and then the board chairs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just for clarification, we are fully funding implementation of junior kindergarten. The Member asked questions about the surplus situation. Although the DECs across the territory have a combined surplus of $10 million, the Member's riding, the Deh Cho DEC, is currently in an accumulated deficit position as a result of onetime costs such as termination benefits and employee removals. The department is working with the DDEC to come up with a plan to recover that deficit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, under the original plan for funding junior kindergarten, we had asked education authorities to cover $2.76 million through a reallocation of existing funding that was provided, which was about 1.76 per cent. This amount will now be covered by the $2.7 million in new funding that was announced yesterday.

As mentioned, there are a lot of applications right across the board. The Youth Contributions is one that's run through MACA, and any community can access that program. Just apply to the regional office. I encourage all small communities that want to apply to that program to apply as soon as possible in the new fiscal year, because I believe it is on a firstcome, firstserved basis.

Schools will be making their own decisions regarding the details of the classes, the teachers, and the programs that best meet the needs of their students. As I mentioned, we believe that our education authorities have the leadership and the financial management skills. They do it on a regular annual basis when enrolments are low, that they were able to shift things around, and we believe that our school authorities have the tools to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before the meetings that we had with all the board chairs and superintendents in December, there was a request for all our education authorities to come back and find money to help implement junior kindergarten. We've made an additional investment that brought the numbers down, so it is the 2.7 that we are looking for, thank you, just for confirmation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have various programs throughout all the departments that focus on youth within the GNWT. Justice has some funding, obviously, and the ECE and our schools have funding. MACA has sports and recreation and youth funding programs.

We can provide the Member with all the applicationtype funding that we give to youth programming, share it with him so that they can look at the appropriate ways to fill out an application should we want to bring the Odd Squad up to the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.