Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am more than happy to share a breakdown of it. However, I am asking for a little bit of time because the statistics that we have are from 2017-2018. I would rather get some more current stats, for 2018-2019, to be able to provide to the Members. I am just trying to find out when we know when that will be coming. The difficulty is that their fiscal year ends in July, so the data wouldn't be able to be given to the Members until the fall, which is just before. We could provide old information from 2017-2018, which is really outdated, if that is what is desired. Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point, like I said, we don't know what the costs are. That is part of the process. We know that we are committed to doing this. This was agreed in the government report.

If Members think that they know the best for how we should be doing this, I am willing to take their feedback, and I will provide that to the associate deputy minister, who does have the credentials to actually move this forward, but I don't think that it is appropriate for us on this floor to be actually defining how the polytechnic university moves forward. We have hired a person to do that, and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 2019-2020 Main Estimates for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Overall, the department's estimates propose an increase of $9.8 million or three percent over the 2018-2019 Main Estimates.

Improving education outcomes and student success requires ongoing support from early childhood through to post-secondary education and training. Our 2019-2020 Main Estimates reflect this approach.

The 2019-2020 estimates includes funding of $2.4 million to support initiatives, including the expansion of the Northern Distance Learning program to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The early childhood staff grant is actually provided to staff who work at licensed childcare centres. It is provided to supplement their wages. It is provided to them directly, and I believe it's on a quarterly basis that they apply and are fund for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The funding for the Seniors' Home Heating Subsidy was actually reviewed last year, and we made some changes. We found that there was no consistency across the board, so we looked at the ridings. We tried to do it based on the market baskets in other departments. It did change some of the zones in the communities. Some of the communities actually got more money, and some actually got a little bit less because, in my opinion, it is a lot more expensive to provide home heating fuel in Tsiigehtchic than it is in Hay River. That is my personal opinion. I would have to have...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I think that we do need to look at our arts community. It is another diversification of the economy. It is something that I think we need to support. We are just finalizing the Arts Strategy, which will be provided. It is just going through Cabinet and will be going to standing committee. Then, after that, we are developing an action plan. Within that action plan, we will identify increases as needed. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The part-time position would be mostly providing support to the licensed daycare centres and family homes currently in place. The regional coordinator's job, and that has been my direction, is the job to get into the communities that aren't there and to try to do education, public forums, to talk about the services that we have. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely right. When we were looking at funding, I wasn't the Minister then. I am guessing that it was told that you need to find some savings, and Aurora College came and said, "These are the programs that we are getting rid of because they are not cost-effective." It was not ECE. It was Aurora College that originally said that they are not cost-effective.

In the meantime, they are doing a review. I am not sure who did that review. I am not sure if it was the administration that approved that review, because, at the time that it came out, the person who was in charge of...

When I first took over Education, I was shocked that we didn't even offer the upper-level courses in all of the small communities. I was naive and made an assumption that education was accessible to all. I have since learned that that is not so.

At this point, we are just trying to get the Northern Distance Learning into all of the small communities. With the adding of the four that are coming up now, that will bring it up to 15. Those are for the upper level. Those are the grades that people cannot access right now, currently, in their communities, although we still have issues with other ones...

Thank you. No, that isn't correct. This money is negotiated in the agreement, the collective agreement, but we also provide additional training. We provide training on self-regulation. We provide training on the Indigenizing education. We provide training wherever possible. Training is critical, and it's something that Education takes seriously. It's not something that we just dump on the Association of Teachers and not provide anymore. This is in their collective agreement, and then we provide training as appropriate to the needs of initiatives that we're bringing forward. Thank you, Mr...