Bob Bromley

Thank you, committee. Short break.

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Thank you, Minister. Next on my list is Mr. Menicoche.

I’ll call Committee of the Whole to order. Today we have under consideration Bills 2, 4, 7, Tabled Document 62-14(6) and Minister’s Statement 47-16(4). What is the wish of the committee? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Daniels. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for that response. I would like to ask the Minister, a particular need is for spaces for infants. That seems to be the bottleneck and perhaps understandably. It’s very challenging. Is the Minister supporting the provision of child care spaces for infants and where are we at on that? Is there sufficient provision of those spaces out there? I understand there isn’t. What is the Minister doing to provide that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Tabled Document 62-16(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2010-2011, and would like to report progress, with two motions being adopted. I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Minister.

I appreciate those comments. I am, once again, very supportive of the program. I think it would be worthwhile determining what the needs are out there for number of spaces. That would help inform the program and make it more effective. I wonder if the Minister would commit to determining how many child care spaces are needed and, once again, I’m wondering how many new ones are being supported this year.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There were a number of things in the opening remarks from the Minister that I appreciated. One of them -- no surprise -- is the extra dollars going towards early childhood and family literacy. I think there still seems to be a focus on the kindergarten and up sort of age groups and I’m hoping, ultimately, we will focus that more and more to the earliest years. But that’s good to see.

The $1.3 million towards promoting attendance is a good response, I think, to what has been highlighted as a major concern. I think it’s been noted that kids actually miss a couple years of...