Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are continuing to work with the leadership in Ndilo to look at addressing it. As the Member knows, we do have a lot of infrastructure projects within the department, community learning centres, schools. We always review our 20-year capital needs assessment, and sometimes things get put off and then some other things take priority year after year, but we are continuing to work with the leadership on addressing that.

Yes, we can get the values for the projects, but some communities might have had multiple projects; others might have just had one, but we can get some of the exact numbers. It varies from community to community as well as from project to project. As I said in my Member's statement, we will be meeting with the rural and remote communities to get some direction and work on how we move forward with the strategy as well as with the fund.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a concern as well, because we really want to work with the community to get a school put in place. The last discussion that we had was the First Nations wanted to put in a bigger school, so we are waiting for a P3 project. Based on our capital standards, the school size that was supposed to go in there, they wanted a bigger one, so we are looking at a P3 study, and we are still waiting for that report and that information from the Behdzi Ahda First Nation.

On universal childcare, not at this time. I can't commit to that. As I did mention, we are in bilateral negotiations with the Government of Canada to get some funding that will roll out early learning and childcare action plan. As I mentioned, that will take us to the end of this government, and we will be sharing that with committee once that bilateral agreement is signed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; there is $4.2 million in GNWT funding that aims to expand employment as well as training opportunities across the Northwest Territories.

On April 1, 2017, we did make enhancements to encourage success and look at having the program become more successful than it has in the past, and one of those enhancements was expanding eligibility, and that included the communities that I had mentioned earlier this week. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We do currently have an early childhood development action plan within this government, and we're also working on an early learning and childcare agreement with the federal government to look at outlining where our focus is going to be over the next three years.

The Member asks us if we're going to put energy into creating this action plan. We have some documents that we're referring to right now, but a lot of our energy has been working with some of those communities to create daycares. We have two new daycares in two of our smallest communities, and it's a very successful story.

I'm working...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, we are committed to improving the accessibility, affordability, and inclusivity of childcare in the Northwest Territories. It continues to be a priority of our department, as well as a priority of this government. We want to ensure that we support the creation of new childcare spaces and programs in all of our communities across the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, currently we have childcare spaces in 23 of the 33 communities of the Northwest Territories. We need to put our focus, our finances, financial resources into making sure we have childcare...

Yes, the focus on the Small Community Employment Support Program is around employment and training development. We know what it is for, and that is why we worked with committee and Members to enhance that program. We want to see success in this program. That is why we made some enhancements. I will go back to the department and get some more clarity for the Member on some of these policy decisions that were made, and I will get back to the Member on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, there were policy decisions made at the departments that we supported to focus on the success of this program. As I mentioned yesterday in the House, we also have communities that are hurting economically, and we want to make sure that we continue to support all residents across the Northwest Territories. We looked at some of the communities that were ineligible before that we thought we could bring into the eligibility list, and those are the communities that I mentioned in previous answers to the questions.

I do not think this is a disappointment, or the hard work from the rural and remote communities are going down the drain. Actually, it is an enhancement. We have $3 million added to the fund to top it up to $4.2 million. We made enhancements to the Small Community Fund. Like I said, program eligibility, you get more people who can apply on the program, increased benefit levels as well as flexibility for community employers and organizations. At no way do I think this is a disappointment. I think this is something that we should be excited about and promoting. It is focusing on employment, and...