Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To clarify, the bulk of the money from the bilateral wasn't all put into training. It was given out through a variety of early childhood intervention programming. Of the money, I think that it was wise of the previous Minister. It is not only about getting licensed childcare; it is actually having the credentials. The Minister before me realized that was an issue, and so instituted the change to the one-year early childhood development program from one year to actually a two-year program and moved from 10 scholarships to 30 scholarships. At this point, my belief is that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No child who is enroled in junior kindergarten or kindergarten is it compulsory that they attend. It's an optional programming, both of them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are a number of issues that affect bringing licensed childcare into communities. We don't keep records of unlicensed childcare, so I have to state that. There are a lot of communities that use their aunties, grandmothers, et cetera. Those ones, we don't record. There are two that I can think of right now, Fort Liard and Tsiigehtchic, came on. Sometimes, you get a licensed childcare centre, and then they don't get the staff properly. There were some internal issues with the community, family issues with communities. Sometimes, they fall apart. The reality is, in...

Thank you. Attendance being compulsory is not something that I would actually commit to at this moment. The reason I'm not willing to commit to that is because we need to look at that. At my last education meeting with the superintendents and chairs of all the school boards across the Northwest Territories, I brought up the issue of attendance because it's a concern of mine, and I said that, in the next Assembly, we need to look at attendance because, if we can't get the kids to school, we're not going to be able to get them educated and they're not going to succeed.

One thing I did hear, and I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my right, I have Mr. John MacDonald. He is the assistant deputy minister for education and culture. On my left, I have Shelley Kapraelian, who is the director of early childhood development. I brought them as witnesses in case there is any more in-depth information that they can provide. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Again, the three-year total for the federal is $7 million, and two point something of that a year, so it's a three-year funding agreement.

You're right. I have to say the MLAs are right. We're not putting enough investment into early childhood development, but, as has been said by many Ministers at the table, our whole budget is $1.6 billion, or something like that, and there's not enough money to go around. I don't see that we should take all from one. I think maybe we need to look at the balance, but I do believe in balance. I believe that we need to have early childhood...

Mr. Speaker, wish to table the following three documents entitled "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 605-18(3): Junior Kindergarten Program"; "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 620-18(3): Indigenous Languages in Junior Kindergarten"; and "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 696-18(3): Online Safety for Children." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Whenever there is an issue that we approach Cabinet and we try to secure money for any new programs, et cetera, the reality is the economy is bad, we all know that, and so it's tight. We are doing our best. I mean it's not okay. We need to do that.

One thing I did not mention, and I just got a note from John MacDonald, actually, was that the other thing we are doing is because I believe that parenting courses have a lot to do with it, and it's not just parenting we have to tell people what to do; it's that social interaction that happens with that.

When I was a single mom...

Honestly, I had never thought about that, but consensus government is working together. I think that is a really valuable idea, and so I will implement that, because I think it's important. They are the ones who are actually be utilizing the form. They should be the ones stamping and saying, "This works for me."

Thank you to the MLA for reminding me. Actually, that was one of the bigger concerns that I had. If people are getting, for example, their utility bills in and it's our fault that we are late and then we are not paying their late fees and they are getting late fees, that is a sin on our side, in my opinion. We are not giving a lot of money to people. We are not giving any money for late fees, so it's coming out of their food or their clothing allowance, and I am not okay with that. We have already implemented that, if the error is on our side, we will be paying late fees. If the error is on...