Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As this House knows, I am a true supporter of anything that contributes to the health and strength of our Aboriginal languages. NCS, the Native Communications Society, is valuable and also contributes towards this.

Again, there is no doubt that those talented individuals have worked for the society, as well, and learned from NCS over the years. We fully support that as government, for their contributions over the years.

The Member does put in a very interesting idea about how we can move forward on providing the training to these northern broadcasters. I have instructed my...

Mr. Speaker, last week I informed the Assembly that officials from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment would be meeting with officials from the two Yellowknife education authorities to compare financial numbers about junior kindergarten. I would like to advise the Assembly of the results of those meetings because I think they confirmed that there is a lot of incorrect information floating around about junior kindergarten.

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be too much opinion and not enough facts about junior kindergarten, which is why I tabled a detailed fact package in the Assembly...

We are re-profiling; we aren’t cutting the budget. So the $7.4 million, as indicated, it is being rolled out to all the school boards to implement junior kindergarten. Those are the areas we have been working with the school boards and we will continue to make that a success. The junior kindergarten has been under discussion through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, Early Childhood Development. This is where we’re at today. We’ve done a lot of research, and research is telling us this is the best way to go. The 16 to 1, at this point we are at 13.8 to 1. When we start implementing...

Again, the fact package does cover that detailed information. In 2014-15 for YCS, $277,000 will be deducted from YCS budget out of the $7.4 million that we’ve been talking about re-profiling through PTR. In 2015-16 another $467,000 is meant to be deducted from their budget. In 2016-17 another $393,000 estimated to be deducted. So it’s a total of $1.137 million. This reduction will be offset with an increase of $960,000 funding from ECE through formula funding to support implementation of JK, resulting in an overall reduction over three years of $177,000. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Since we’ve been dealing with NCS the last few years now on the reporting mechanism with the federal government, we’ve been talking about evaluating and reviewing of their proposals, as well, and the annual reports that are coming in. I completely agree, because we are a public government, and the way that the money is spent is essential to be a responsible government. This is an area that we’re primarily focusing on.

My department also recently discussed the 2014-15 contributions with NCS, which included an enhanced review of the outcome. This was done with NCS agreement, so they’ve also...

The CanNor funding has got its own sources and they deal directly with NCS, but I can speak to the areas of meeting with the federal Minister, the former Minister and the current Minister of Canadian Heritage, on a number of occasions to lobby the federal government for additional funds on Aboriginal language in general. This work, obviously, is ongoing work that we’re doing between the two parties. This year we’ve entered into negotiations, as well, with the federal government on the Canada-NWT Languages Agreement. We are on the verge of negotiations with the federal government and it will be...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Those are the logistics that still need to be worked out. With any sponsors, obviously, they want their logo. We are currently in discussion with the industry on the particular matter, but at the end of the day, the important part is we are giving tablets to new mothers, expectant mothers and all kinds of programs that will be beneficial to the family. That is what we’re doing at this point. There are a lot of discussions that are happening. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Junior Kindergarten – Fact Package.”

Mahsi. I agree with the Member that these individuals should be recognized and supported, and that’s what we’re doing through our apprenticeship occupation certification. We’ve committed $70,000 to support Skills Canada per year. Also, in 2013-14 we provided $140,000 for Skills Canada. We’ll continue to provide those types of sponsorships for these individuals to succeed beyond just the trades access. Someday we want them to be a journeyman ticket holder so they can come back to our Northwest Territories and contribute to our society. So, yes, those are areas that we need to discuss with the...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Through the Skills Canada office, they’re supported by federal and also our territorial government through the ECE department and industry through program and event sponsors. So this is a very successful initiative pertaining to access trades programming throughout the Northwest Territories, nationally and also international stages. So we are working closely with Skills Canada to obtain the data that they would have on those individuals that are entering the trades programming. We have our own information as well. We sponsor those individuals through labour market...