R.J. Simpson

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Caroline Cochrane will be absent from the House for remainder of the week to attend the First Ministers' meeting in Ottawa, Ontario. Also, the Honourable Katrina Nokleby and Honourable Diane Thom will be absent due to personal matters. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm always happy to sit down with Members and have these discussions. In terms of universal childcare in Fort Smith, it's a difficult conversation to have, to create a pilot program. When we know full well that we can't afford to expand that pilot program to the rest of the territory, we're creating a real inequity. However, there are options and there is plenty of money available to assist Fort Smith, whether it's the college, whether it's the community, or an organization, to develop the childcare space. We have someone in Fort Smith who is there to help do those kinds of things, someone who...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. SFA does provide additional funding for students who have children. If you're a single individual with no dependents, you will get less than if you were a single parent, say, with one, two, or three, et cetera, children, so there is that. In terms of Aurora College in particular, I've been in talks with the department regarding the childcare situation there. I think everyone is aware of that, everyone in this House anyway. I know that in Fort Smith there is a deficit in terms of childcare, as there is in many places. That's something that needs to be addressed if we...

I think there are the minor amendments that ECE would like to have made to the SFA Act. One of those will be changing the rules so that, notwithstanding the FAA, the student names will not have to be publicly reported. What needs to happen here is a legislative proposal will come to me, I will approve it, and it will go to a standing committee. The standing committee will have to provide response and comment. At that point, it will have to go to Cabinet for approval, and then a bill will have to be drafted, which will then have go back to Cabinet for approval. At that point, it will be brought...

. As I mentioned earlier, we have the career and education advisors. What they do is they have those conversations with students, starting at grade 7, so it's not quite as early as the Member is speaking about, but they start letting kids know about their options early on so that those students can then make sure they're taking the right courses to get where they need to be. We also have the SNAP program, which is something that's available all over the territory, although it does take some partnerships; it's not something you can just roll out. There are a number of things like that, and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If someone wants to get into trades, there are a lot of ways to do it, of course. We offer trades courses at Aurora College here. There is more emphasis being put on the trades at the high school level. Our career development, it's a different name. The officials from ECE go into the schools and talk to the students, and tell them about other career opportunities. They are having those conversations with students now, saying that trades is a career that you can get into. That type of work needs to happen more and more. I know, for a long time, trades was sort of a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm happy to second this motion. I was the deputy under the previous Speaker, who is now the Member for Monfwi, and I saw what he did in terms of expanding this Legislative Assembly's language capability. I think it's a point of pride for this territory. It's something that I talk about when I speak with legislators from other parts of the country. I think that this Legislative Assembly is the voice of the people, and the voice of the people needs to be understood. While we have made strides, clearly there is still a way to go. I believe that by referring to the...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents: "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 31-19(2), Response to Progress of Government;" and "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 92-19(2), Fort Providence Dental Care Services." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We're looking into a lot of different options. Right now, ECE offers many, many different pots of funding that can help with creating childcare spaces: there is money for start-up; there is funding that can be used to top off wages of employees; there is funding for all sorts of different things. In terms of just the college, yes, the college is looking into figuring out how we can better support parents. ECE is always open to having those conversations about how we can create more childcare spaces, and, in fact, that's exactly what we're mandated to do.

Like I mentioned, there are a lot of factors that are out of my control, personally. While we may have seen the last publication of student names, I can't make any promises. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.