Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Except in Yellowknife, all of the education authorities get all of their money from the Government of the Northwest Territories. So who’s paying for it? By and large, it’s this government. All of the boards are encouraged to make sure there is relevant cultural awareness training provided to all of their new teachers. They do that and it’s something I have discussed with the DECs largely because we see it as important to retention. I am satisfied that every board in the Northwest Territories is undertaking activities in this area. What we have done is encouraged them...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment does have a Teacher Induction Program, and one of the goals of that program is to transmit the culture of the system to the new and beginning teacher. So, yes, that is something that we do try and do through the department. That’s also partly the responsibility of the various boards across the Territories. I have spoken to the chairs of all of the divisional education councils and the DEAs in Yellowknife about the importance of cultural awareness and cross-cultural training. In fact, I’ve held up examples...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this government already puts millions of dollars into early childhood programs and we will continue to invest in early childhood. Whether or not we would increase our funding is something we would have to take a look at. Without knowing what the amount of money is that we’re looking at, it’s difficult to advance any plans. We are quite ready to move forward and we had hoped that we would get some signals from the federal government on Friday that would help us advance our plans so that we would be prepared to move things forward. The federal Minister...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there was a good deal of progress made at the meetings on Friday. My provincial and territorial colleagues and the federal Minister went quite a ways towards finalizing what we think will be the wording in a draft agreement. What remains as the biggest stumbling block right now is the money, and without knowing what sort of commitment we’re going to see in the federal budget, there was unwillingness for Ministers around the table to move the process any further. So really the stumbling block right now is money and its allocation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 22, An Act to Amend the Education Act, No. 2, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Education Act to provide that the Minister shall prescribe the hours of instruction for the academic year for kindergarten, subject to a minimum threshold of 485 hours. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I could have an open consultative process, but at the end of the day there may be no deal. We would spend the money on a consultation without knowing if we’re even going to get one dollar to spend on this program. At this point, until we see the money in the budget, we don’t know the terms and conditions or when it’s going to come down. So, no, I’m not prepared to advance the prospect of going out on a consultation to try and find out how we should spend this. Because of the nature of the agreement, I can’t even share with the public what the draft is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the base funding that the small jurisdictions are seeking would amount to $5 million a year each. That would be over and above the per capita. If we were to get straight per capita money…and again, this is if the money were flowing at $1 billion a year. We know it likely won’t; there will be a number of things that come out of this money, so we’re probably not talking about $5 billion in total that will be split between the provinces and territories. But if it were $1 billion for any one year that was being split between all the provinces and territories...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As part of our Teacher Education Program, that is, in fact, done by the college right now. That’s part of the Teacher Education Program. Mr. Speaker, we run a system of education in the Northwest Territories where local control is considered very important, so schools can reflect local culture, the local wishes of parents. So the funding is handed from this government to the boards by way of formula and there aren't a lot of ways in which we control that. We have the Education Act which sets out how things have to be done. We have an accepted curriculum, we have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for instance, the Tlicho or Dogrib Community Services Board takes every teacher out on the land before school for a week for a community hunt. Almost all of the regions, in fact all of the regions do some form of cultural awareness. So it’s best handled at the board level because each region has a different culture that needs to be appreciated. Each of the boards take the lead on providing the detailed cultural awareness programming and that’s accommodated through the transfers they are provided to operate the boards in each region.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, childcare is an area of exclusive provincial and territorial responsibility. We’re not talking about a national system, we’re not talking about something that would be the same in all jurisdictions. For instance, Quebec already has a system that is the envy of everybody else in Canada and they’re putting billions of dollars into that. Our system is starting from a different point, as is every other system in Canada. So what we’re talking about is a program where the federal government would assist the provinces and territories to improve on the systems...