Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Obviously, 2016 is coming very fast and I’m sure it will be looked at. We will be looking into it further. The college, again, community learning centres falls under that item, so we will be working closely with them when they are going through that review process of their facilities, so I am glad that the Member is referring to that. It will be addressed with the board of governors as well. Mahsi.

We have already started working very closely with communities, the district education authorities and district education councils to identify the infrastructure needs in the communities. Again, we are working very closely with Health and Social Services and Public Works and Services. So those are some areas we’ve identified based on the numbers that have been produced by the district education authorities and councils. So we’ve been working with those numbers in communities. The information that has been shared with us, we are fully aware of infrastructure in the communities. Again, based on...

Mr. Chair, that is the Small Communities Fund that we borrowed before. Now we are returning it, the $400,000, so it is going back to small community to focus on small community funding. We are very happy to get that back. Mahsi.

Beginning in 2013-14, we launched territorial Elders in Schools programming dedicating just over $400,000 to ensure the elders are actively involved through NWT schools. Our contribution is to the school boards and they decide how many elders will be hired based on the numbers. Some are larger populations and some smaller. This is also a first for us. Obviously, over time this number will increase. We know the hours elders will be working in school will be minimal with $400,000, but it will be increased over time. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. That’s correct because the federal funding came directly from the feds and, obviously, we are still working with them on program delivery, but at the end of the day, they have to report to the federal government. They don’t report to us on the federal money, but they report to us on our territorial funding that we allocate to them. Mahsi.

Mr. Chair, part of the process will be the regs that will be before us would have to require those individuals to have the qualification. We will do our part, as a department, to provide the necessary training, necessary support mechanism that needs to be in place. Throughout the licenced early childhood programming, we talk about the daycares and junior kindergarten, a mixture. Yesterday, we got into more detail about how we can provide training.

That is information that is available and we will provide that specific training to qualify people in our education system to deal with the children...

Mr. Chair, the committee met, I believe, late last year and then we have been developing a terms of reference for the committee. I just got that last week or last week and a half. We are moving forward on that. It’s true that the committee has met. They are discussing options on the wage increase for minimum wage. I’m expecting a report very soon. As soon as I get that, we need to go through that. I will keep Members posted on that. Mahsi.

Mahsi. When it comes to inclusive schooling, this is what we have to date. There’s legislation that we have to follow, but we are listening to the Members. That’s the very reason we’ve listened to the Members, now we’re going to reviewing. We’re reviewing the inclusive schooling. So we want to make changes that reflect on the students’ needs as well. Based on the review, based on the input from the school boards, the school boards will be actively involved and will give us options to make some decisions if this is going to be based on students’ needs, the community’s needs and so forth. So we...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. The increase is due to the fact that there is a Community Skills for Work, $290,000, provided to the college; Teacher Education Program is approximately $70,000; and also the UNW Collective Agreement, $404,000. There are also lease costs of $112,000, and then Geoscience Field Assistant Training program, $54,000. So that adds up to roughly what the Member has alluded to. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I have, to my left, deputy minister of ECE, Gabriella Eggenhofer. To my immediate right is Dana Heide, associate deputy minister. To my far right is Marissa Martin, director of finance and capital planning within ECE. Mahsi.