Jackson Lafferty

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.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, that Bill 25, An Act to Amend the Education Act, be read for the first time. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi. That is part of our discussion we’re having now. As I’ve stated in the House, an action plan will be coming by this spring, late spring and it will be delivered to the Standing Committee for their input as well. So that is the process that we’re going through and yes, I will be informing the standing committee. Mahsi.

Mahsi. Student Financial Assistance supports the students that need financial assistance going back to university or college. There are subsidy programs through ECE, Education, Culture and Employment that do offset the cost of child care programming because we have to support those students. We want them to succeed and come back to our communities to obviously develop professional backgrounds, so to become a professional.

It may not be covered through SFA, but there are other subsidies within ECE that will offset the cost of daycare. Mahsi.

Mahsi. That’s the whole idea of what we’re doing in our department. I just met with my senior staff last week because we talk about the planning, the rolling out of the program of junior kindergarten and how we can work with the preschoolers, how we can work with the Head Start programming. So those are just some of the discussions we’ve been having.

Mr. Bromley also raised that issue last week, I believe it was. Since that time, we’ve been discussing this particular area, how can we improve our communication, our working dialogue with operators. So those are discussions we’ve been having. We...

When I say subsidies for the operators such as preschool, Aboriginal Head Start program is another successful program in the communities funded through the federal government. We continue to enhance those programs in the communities and develop more options. That’s what our main focus is. Some of the communities do not have those options. They have the Head Start program. Some have preschool, some don’t. So, junior kindergarten would allow more flexibility in the communities that do not have licenced child care programming. Those are just some of the areas that we’ve been discussing for a...

Madam Chair, I have a motion. I move that Bill 18 be amended by striking out items 11 to 19 of the Appendix and substituting items 11 to 21 as set out in the schedule to this motion.

Mr. Chair, I seek unanimous consent to have the schedule to this motion deemed read and printed in Hansard in its entirety.

---Unanimous consent granted

Premising that the 60th parallel of latitude forms the boundary between the Northwest Territories and the Province of Saskatchewan for description purposes.

Consisting of all that portion of the Northwest Territories bounded as follows: Commencing at the intersection...