Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions in follow-up to my Member’s statement today. As I mentioned, the government is doing a lot of good work in terms of supporting foster families and getting the programs in place to make sure that children in the NWT are given the proper services that they are entitled to. I just want to follow up with the Minister of Health and Social Services in terms of trying to educate residents of the Northwest Territories how this government can support them should they want to become a foster family in the community, or else if they want to take the options...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 1991 Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The convention recognizes children as citizens with the right to reach their fullest potential to be treated with dignity and respect, to be protected from harm, to exercise a voice, to engage in play and recreational activities, and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

Furthermore, our government here just tabled a document Measuring Success and Focusing on Results. In this report it states a few statistics that I’d like to share with the Members here today as well as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the flip side of that, when we have foster families that are caring for the individual or the child, at what age does the child not become the responsibility of foster families and are set to become independent and go out into society? Is there care or treatment or an area where the GNWT still supports these young adults, because right now what we do see is a lot of young adults who continue to stay home with their families because there is no support, especially in some of the small communities where there might be some housing shortages or some jobs that might not...

Thank you. I appreciate the Minister’s response. Obviously, when a family takes the responsibility to care for another family member’s children there is added stress and there’s added financial pressures that can’t be alleviated when sometimes it’s on the grandparents, who live on a pension. I mean, we can develop those policies, looking at those policies just specifically with people who are on a fixed income, such as grandparents. I mean, let’s start there because the grandparents are usually the ones that take care of their children’s children and there’s no financial benefit there.

Would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome Chief Herbert Blake, Inuvik Native Band, as well as His Worship Mayor Mark Heyck. Grant Gowans is up there. He’s a childhood friend of mine and we grew up together on the streets of Inuvik and I want to welcome him to the House today. As well, I’d like to recognize and welcome all the Anti-Poverty Working Group here and I just want to wish them the best of luck, and keep up the good work that they’re doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee recommends that the government increase its allocation to fully fund the e-learning initiative currently provided and funded by the Beaufort-Delta District Education Council. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know the first round that I got through I focused a lot on early childhood development. I know when we give out our funding to our education authorities, being the Member that represents Inuvik Boot Lake and the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority and discussions and talking with both educators and staff, the amount of funding that they do get in that region alone, I’m not sure how the formula is given to the students, but in that area alone when we fund the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority it does have a very high cost associated to travel. So when we want educators...

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the government reallocate an additional $2 million from its existing budget to early childhood development in order to achieve the priorities set by the 17th Legislative Assembly. Thank you.

I think, developing some occupational competencies, when we develop this, is going to be very handy not only for this government but it will set the future for our educators. Yesterday I was really hoping I would be able to get through all my questions and answers in the 10 minutes.

I’m a strong supporter of where the department is going. However, I’ve come to realize that this page alone, education and culture, is 79 percent of the overall ECE budget, so there will definitely be a lot of questions. If you look further, it’s 15 percent of the overall budget that we’re going to be approving...

I know the collaboration between the departments of Health and Education Culture and Employment, and in the opening remarks it mentions that there is $511,000 for wage top-up and training to increase the program staff for licenced child care centres.

That got me thinking. I did have some discussions with an early childhood development specialist whose husband works up in Inuvik. We got to talking about these new initiatives and early childhood, and she mentioned that we need to have a specialist that can certify all these early childhood workers and currently we don’t have that. I want to ask...