Jane Groenewegen

Mr. Speaker, like I said, I hate to see things regress; I hate to see things torn down; and we are going to throw away federal money for Aboriginal Head Start; we’re going to throw away the community participation and the dollars, the volunteers, because we’re saying we’re going to take over educating the four-year-olds, and we’re not going to do a very good job with the plan that we have in hand.

I’m going to ask the Minister today, later on, if he will go back to the drawing board. Let’s start again, let’s find out where the need is, let’s identify the resources, and let’s come up with a much...

Thank you. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.

For the record, Mr. Miltenberger, could you please introduce your witnesses?

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order and the department up next is the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. I’d like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank Mr. Bromley for taking a lead role in drafting this motion. Reading this motion you may think that a lot of it applies to the Avens development here in Yellowknife, but I think that it sets a template and it sets a precedent and sets a good model of how our government can respond to our seniors in the Northwest Territories requiring extended care and care in their later years.

The demographic of our aging population in the Northwest Territories is irrefutable. It’s great news. People are living longer, people are living longer more independently, but...

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.