Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions follow up on my Member’s statement and are directed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I’m sure the Minister is aware of the critical importance of early childhood development and I want to explore how this has been recognized in the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative review.

The early childhood development research I’ve cited comes from a presentation to the Canadian Council of Ministers of Education by world renowned early childhood expert Dr. Fraser Mustard. I’ve recommended Dr. Mustard’s work and even his participation in the...

I guess my one complaint is that we’ve had two years of expenditures and I heard absolutely nothing back on what those things were spent on and the results of the research and development. So I’d like to just register that complaint with the Minister and have him work with his colleagues to remedy that, hopefully on a routine basis.

My concern about this funding, of course, is that given the climate change ultimately involves everything, it would be very easy for these dollars to be spent on other things and claim to be spent on climate change. I consider the list we’ve heard to include one or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

My understanding is we will be using about $700,000-and-some in the remainder in this fiscal year. I just want to be sure that that’s correct and ask what the expenditures were from this $1.85 million in the previous two fiscal years. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister saying much more eloquently than I can why we need to do this public consultation of the land and resource management regime as this Minister has had the foresight to do on the issue of water. I think he’s eloquently made my point. Thank you.

I have indeed brought this up a number of times. The Minister and Premier had indicated he would respond, and then retracted that. I would say I will not be able to support this unless that’s there. The Premier insists on putting the cart before the horse and calling it otherwise. We cannot negotiate for what we want unless we know what we want. The public needs to be a participant in defining what we’re negotiating for. I obviously feel very strongly about this, as do others. We need to have public participation, and again we have a record of going behind the scenes and refusing public...

Thank you. Next on my list is Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. We have been accumulating general comments, but do you want that answered right away by the Minister?

That’s good to hear and I hope the Minister will keep us apprised on that. Thank you.

I’m very pleased to hear those comments from the Minister. The scientific information is obviously too powerful to ignore here. If foresters growing trees had similar information, for example, they wouldn’t wait until seedlings are five years old to get the best yields. They’d pour on the fertilizer the moment the seed is planted and we must do the same with our most precious resources.

Given the Aboriginal Student Initiative work will be incomplete without full inclusion of early childhood development considerations, and yet the ECE review is ongoing, how will the Minister ensure that results...