Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, the northern graduates are very beneficial to the Northwest Territories, to our communities and to our regions. So we continue to push forward the delivery of certification, diplomas, degree programs and even into master’s programs nowadays in our Aurora College, the three campuses that we have. We are starting to build on our strength with delivering various programs into communities; we’ll continue to push that forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

With the overall engagement of the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, I’ve been to every region, participating in two or three-day sessions. Particularly this one is very important to me and also working with Health and Social Services. We will be going to those communities and engaging those participants and sharing their ideas and suggestions, so we will make every effort to be in attendance at those forums. We are committed as a department. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, the proposed junior kindergarten obviously is an investment into our schools, into our children. Obviously, we have to find funds to offset the costs. We are exploring those areas and we need to move forward on this. Now we have a framework that’s been tabled in this House and an action plan is part of that moving forward. The junior kindergarten has been proposed. I believe it will benefit the children, the schools and the communities, the regions, the whole Northwest Territories, comparable to other junior kindergartens in Ontario and other places. We want to be on par with...

It’s very important that we involve the communities, the parents, the educators and the leaders of the communities. During the engagement process with the Aboriginal Student Achievement at the initial stage, that’s when we have the public forum in all regions, similar to what we have conducted with the education renewal process, engaging the parents and the educators. Once we start rolling out the program in six of the communities the Member is referring to, and other communities, as well, we must engage those parents. We must engage educators and the leadership, so we have to work through the...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We talked about junior kindergarten along with other initiatives that we want to start working towards as part of our Early Childhood Development Framework and rolling out the action plan towards that. Part of that discussion is thinking about junior kindergarten. From what we’ve heard, we’ve heard over and over that we have to start from an early age.

There have been several reports. The Member and other Members, as well, reported on various research. One of the reports, of course, is from Ontario, that has very encouraging results, with a 7 percent increase in the number...

Mr. Speaker, the Early Childhood Development Framework will be capturing that. It is very serious to our department and with the Health and Social Services, so we will continue to push that forward in this House and in the Northwest Territories across the board. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, certainly that will be part of the option that we can consider as we discuss part of the action plan and moving forward. Again, reiterating that this is the first I heard on the Grade 13. We haven’t heard that before. It will be new to the Northwest Territories. By all means, we can definitely be discussing that. Mahsi.

We have conducted various research across our great country of Canada, even outside, internationally. What the Member is referring to is some of the research that he would have on his file, if he can share that with us as well. We have all these different research that we conducted through our engagement with the committees as well. We have to try and use the best practices that are out there available to us instead of reinventing the wheel or the challenges that we are faced with today. In my view, we have all those documentation, the data, the stats. Now we need to move forward and develop...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for putting the motion forward in this House. As Members are aware, to meet programming infrastructure needs, all departments follow and also plan within the GNWT’s established capital planning process. The capital planning process contains a method to identify the highest priority projects using these five conditions: protection of the people, assets and environment, financial investments and also program needs and requirements.

For the proposed education or training projects, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment explores...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Part of the process, of course, is re-evaluating the overall education system, the programming that we’re delivering into our schools. Alberta, of course, is going through some changes as well. We follow their curriculum, their departmental exams. If there are changes at that level, we have to monitor that, take that into consideration and follow through with our education system.

Yes, there will be some changes that will reflect on our northern perspective, and we want to have a curriculum that is comparable, on par, at a Canadian level. That is our goal and that is our...