Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a motion I would like to have circulated, please.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No one who lives in the Northwest Territories would deny that the cost of living in the Northwest Territories is something that we need to concern ourselves with and where the government should be investing wisely and prudently to help the overall mitigation of that cost of living.

I think, as a government, we’ve talked about all the many subsidies that we contribute to try to help people with the cost of living, but I think we need to look for ways to empower people to make choices to control, as much as they can, their cost of living as well.

I know maybe this is a...

Mr. Chairman, I would like to move that we report progress.

---Carried

It is indeed confusing. At first I thought the Minister was saying that he was going to inventory the preschool programs in the communities, and now he says they’ve already done it. If he’s going to say he’s going to do it now, I was going to suggest wouldn’t that have been a good thing to do before you rolled out the Junior Kindergarten.

Anyway, the Minister last week referred to the specialized education that the teachers of children in early childhood development and Junior Kindergarten would require. The Minister indicated that that training had already taken place.

Again, could the...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. As has been said, the big issue on the capital acquisition for the Department of ENR is these 802s. It’s difficult to talk about them in great detail because, of course, it’s a very technical topic and one that’s very specialized. I’m sure the department has done a fair amount of research into the 802s and the suitability of them for the type of work that we seemingly need to do every year here in the Northwest Territories in fighting fires. I don’t dispute that it is time to add to what we have available here to fight fires. We hope we don’t get future years like...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow up with some more questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment because several things have been shared in the House since I asked my first questions, which create more questions.

The Minister referred to a survey that was being done. I would like to ask the Minister, will he table a copy of this survey in the House, and who exactly is being surveyed with respect to the Junior Kindergarten program rollout? Who is the survey for and what does the survey look like? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you for that long list of symposiums and forums and meetings that the department engaged in, but consultation is a two-way street. Sure, the department may have been telling educators and telling people who run daycares and telling people that are in this line of work what their vision of Junior Kindergarten was. I understand that we were telling them. I’d like to ask the Minister, what were they telling us? Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, my questions are to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I’ll try and be very, very clear. I know that if the public is watching, it may get a little bit hard to follow at times because there are so many different programs out there funded in so many different ways. I guess what the common denominator is, is that if Junior Kindergarten proceeds, it’s going to pull four-year-olds out of a program, which is a significant removal from any program that’s already out there, existing and successful. I think the Aboriginal...