Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to oral question asked by Ms. Bisaro on March 13, 2014, regarding junior kindergarten.

Ms. Bisaro asked about the endorsement of Aboriginal Head Start programs and use of such programs as Junior Kindergarten in the eight Northwest Territories communities where such programs operate.

I must applaud the Western Arctic Head Start Council for providing quality early childhood programming for the past 17 years in the Northwest Territories and for their contributions they have made to help children, families and communities.

The eight Aboriginal Head Start programs...

With the evaluation assessment of junior kindergarten not only in our jurisdictions but other jurisdictions as well, we have been compiling all the information from the communities, 33 communities. It is necessary to have junior kindergarten, especially in those communities that don’t have licenced early childhood programming. The Member is referring to communities that may not have licenced child care programming. So this is of value to them. This is a benefit to them to have optional programming. Then there’s the Head Start program in the eight various communities we work with as well. Mahsi...

Mahsi. We have to work with our federal counterparts, because what the Member is referring to is the Aboriginal Head Start program. That is funded through the federal government. We don’t evaluate that, the federal government does. They report to the federal government. We work with them. We work with the communities, we work with all 33 communities and junior kindergarten is optional programming for the communities.

The Aboriginal Head Start program is in the communities. We support them as well. We provide funding to various child care programming in the communities. Some of the communities...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We do recognize the Aboriginal Head Start program.

Part of the plan will be to work with existing professional staff that we have currently, and we’re going to be providing specific training to deal with the early childhood as well. This will be happening prior to the summer and also in the fall time for those individuals that may have missed their training. Not only that, we are in the process of topping up the wages for those child care workers as well. Then we have scholarships for those individuals that want to pursue their higher education. We want them to come back, so we will be providing an incentive for them to come back to work for...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. After our engagement with the communities, numerous discussions that we’ve been having, especially the small communities, it’s been identified that there are 10 communities without licenced child care programming. First are Colville Lake, Enterprise, Jean Marie River, Lutselk’e, Kakisa, Nahanni Butte, Norman Wells, Trout Lake, Tsiigehtchic and Wrigley. Those are the communities without licenced child care programming. Mahsi.

Mahsi. That is our overall plan, starting 2014, the new school year, we’re going to be reaching out to 29 communities, especially those 10 communities that are without licenced child care programming. The Minister’s riding is a prime example. He’s part of a community that would benefit once we roll out the program, and other communities as well. This has huge potential, very beneficial to the communities, especially those isolated communities that do not have this programming. The Member is quite correct that some of the communities are not in the same position as the larger communities. I...

Mr. Speaker, I’ve already answered that question for Mr. Bromley. This is federal programming, the eight communities the Member is referring to. We’re working with them. Junior kindergarten is a prime example as part of enhancing the program. Again, it’s optional. We’re not forcing parents to send their kids to junior kindergarten; it is optional for parents. At this point, I’ll have to take that question as notice. Mahsi

When we first introduced junior kindergarten as part of our discussions, obviously we don’t want to have impacts on other programs in schools. With this approach, the school programs should not suffer, as the department funds school boards as part of our contributions. Nobody needs to rely on surpluses to fund education. We already provide funding for educational programming for the Northwest Territories, the 33 communities we contribute to on an annual basis. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Student Financial Assistance Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Student Financial Assistance Act to raise the maximum aggregate principal amount of all student loans that may be made by the Government of the Northwest Territories by $5 million for the 2014-2015 and subsequent fiscal years. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.