Okay, thank you. I am going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So following up on my colleague's line of questioning, but just to step back for a minute, I mean in our contributions for early learning, there's notable reductions in a number of different categories for the funding that we're giving to centre-based programs, family day homes, early childhood program contributions. And my understanding is that this is the result of a sunset of federal funding. And so for this coming year, are we expecting to have a renewed agreement with the feds to tide us through and make up the differences that we see here in our contributions to early learning centres and family day homes, or are we expecting to go into this coming year with these significant reductions going out to operators? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I am going to go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I want to be very clear with this response. There's no reductions to dollars being afforded to our child care providers. What you're seeing here is that when the agreement was first implemented, there wasn't, you know, a huge rush and an uptake of it, and so we ended up with a carryover. It also took time for us to get to the 300 spaces that -- additional 300 spaces of our targets that we were budgeted for, and so we ended up with carryovers year over year. And so what you're seeing there in the difference is a difference in one year has carryover; the next year does not. Those carryovers come forward in our budgeting through supplemental appropriations. And so I can confirm for the Member that we are in a new agreement with the federal government that takes us through to 2031, and that agreement is on par with our previous agreement. So there's not a reduction to the agreement. It just -- we don't show the supplemental appropriation which carries over the previous year's funding. And as the child care -- as our needs within the sector become more and more -- so the Member just heard me let the Member for Great Slave know that our deficit would be to the tune of $10 million. As we eat up those carryovers, that's when we're going to see the -- kind of the true-up nature of the extent of that deficit in funding. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay. Thanks to the Minister for that clarification. I think that's important for everybody to understand.
Can the Minister tell us when this ELCC agreement was recently renewed with the feds, was there an attempt to expand it for more than 300 spaces? As we've now sort of had unexpectedly more success than we thought in setting up new child care spaces, was that taken into account in the renegotiation with the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the new agreement was signed in February of 2025, right up against kind of at the 11th hour of the election for the federal government, and it was essentially a take-it-or-leave-it proposal without the ability to negotiate. We were able to ensure that we ended up as a territory with, I guess receipts if you will, so a letter in writing from the previous Minister about how our situation in the territories is different than other provincial jurisdictions across Canada and that the agreement does not meet our needs in the Northwest Territories. And that is some of the information that we're carrying forward with our territorial counterparts in order to ensure that we're negotiating an equity funding arrangement for territories. So that is work that is currently underway with our territorial counterparts. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Would the Minister be able to get back to us in writing with a breakdown of the 355 net new child care spaces in the territory that we've managed to create over the last few years, to get a breakdown by region or by community so we get a better understanding of where these new spaces have popped up. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, finally, quick clarification.
So under grants, the SCIP or supporting child inclusion and participation grant, has gone down from 82 to 47. Is that also going to be supplemented by -- you know, supplementary funds? Is that expected to go back up to the same levels, or are we expecting to see significant drop in the SCIP funding? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, this is an accounting one where we've moved it from the grants line item for this coming year down to the contributions line item. So it is now found just down at the bottom of that page on page 39. So it's the last line item before the totals.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not sure why it's listed twice on the page, but thanks to the Minister. That's all my questions for now. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Is there any further questions? Frame Lake.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I do have some on this page. So just noting that for ELCCs, the wage grid is still lower than many centres currently pay their staff. Can the Minister speak to how that problem is being addressed. Thanks.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the wage grid is, at the end of the day, the minimum, and it's what child care centres are funded for. But what they choose to pay their staff, ultimately they decide at the end of the day. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so can the Minister help us understand with the centres only able to charge based on the funding agreements of the $10 a day, I mean how are they supposed to make up the difference? Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the goal there between the wage grid for the centre-based early learning and childcare coordinators, our goal was to bring it on par with education assistants in the education system. And so that is the work that has been done. And if centres are choosing to pay higher, then that is something that they would need to mitigate from their end.
In addition, Mr. Chair, centres also get flexible funding that they can use to support wages should they choose, or to support the hiring of additional staff. So some centres, for example, have chosen to hire more people into roles like a cook, for example. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so just continuing on this thread, you know, something that I heard from child care operators recently -- well, within the past year anyways -- is that they were restricted in their ability to fundraise to provide services outside of kind of the basic agreement that we have with the feds and pass on to them. So are there any updates on that; is that something that we found some flexibility for them in? Yeah, thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, that is called voluntary funding, and there is an entire web page on the ECE website that is dedicated to it and explaining to child care providers how to use voluntary funding. It is within the federal agreement that people can use voluntary funding but the crux of that is that it needs to be voluntary. At this point, there aren't additional mandatory fees. And that's one of the flexibilities, for example, that was discussed at our recent federal-territorial-provincial meeting. With voluntary funding, the important part of that is if a family comes forward and says, no, we're not comfortable paying, you know, that added fee for this activity or transportation or this special meal, that their child can't be excluded from activities within the daycare centres. So it has to remain a voluntary fee. And some daycare centres also participate in fundraising activities in order to mitigate some of those costs and kind of get around the whole voluntary fee portion of that. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I know that the Minister works with her various provincial ministerial counterparts on advocacy to get better flexibility from the feds on this program. The voluntary fees is certainly -- I think it's positive, but it does put some families, I think, in a bit of a difficult position, and daycares as well. So I am just wondering has the Minister made any progress with her counterparts on advocating for some more flexibility in this program to allow the daycares, I think around the country but certainly in the NWT, to operate -- how do I put it -- in maybe a bit more of a realistic way with the operating environment that they're in. The fact that they have to pay higher wages than we're able to subsidize for, that they -- yeah, that there are families demanding services that aren't -- that aren't able to be funded without additional fees. And, yeah, can the Minister give us any insights into any flexibility that she's been able to find?
Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the meeting that I was just at, oh my goodness, two weeks ago now in Ottawa was to discuss exactly that, different ideas and solutions from around the table, for what some of those flexibilities might be and how those flexibilities might look different between provinces from one end of the country to the other and territories from one coast to the next. And so those conversations continue. And I don't have anything new to report back to the House at this time.
Okay, thank you. I will go back to the Member from Frame Lake.
Okay, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that work by the Minister and certainly hope that she's able to make some progress at some point because I think that flexibility is something that families are looking for. But, I mean, at least we have the volunteer funding that can be used. I mean, the last time I spoke to child care providers about this, that was what they were looking for, was something along those lines. So at least we have that but would like to see some more progress, indeed. Yeah, just emphasizing, and if I can, get it on the record, that the main message that families brought to me is that access to child care was their first priority. Cost of child care was priority number 2. So families need access as a number one, and certainly people are happy to see the costs reduced but not if it comes at the cost of access, so.
Can the Minister provide an update to committee on how the rollout of the GNWT early learning framework is going; has the Minister been receiving feedback from educators? Yeah, thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, huge thank you to BC on that. They were able to support us when we were looking for something that we could take off the shelf and adapt to our NWT context. So we were able to implement that. And at this point, I have nothing new to report as we continue to implement that across the territory. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go back to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, yeah, I know one or maybe more Members already touched on the success that we've had with establishing 355 net new spaces. I have two questions about that.
The first one is what are we -- do we have funding to make up that gap between the 300 and the 355? Are we able to fund that adequately? Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that's where some of our deficit comes from is the fact that we are funded for our target, which was 300, and we have surpassed our target. Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Probably not something I'd hear from families on, but I certainly haven't heard complaints that we have too many spaces available. So I guess what I would ask is how are we managing this -- I don't want to call it a problem. I think it's a success. But of course it's a success that's come with a cost. So how are we managing that, and how do we mitigate the success of this program? Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, certainly, you know, it's one of those successes where you were excited for about five seconds and then realized what it actually meant. And just to the Member's point, even though we are seeing success we're not stopping there. We know that child care is very much needed across the territory, and we want to ensure that those spaces are accessible. So we've not slowed down. We've not kind of taken our foot off the gas. We're still pursuing those child care spots because the benefit to the territory far exceeds that. So we're seeing, you know, those successes clear across the territory. And I should say not just in Yellowknife. The successes is also being seen outside of Yellowknife in small communities, which is incredibly important. How we're mitigating it right now, I end up bringing forward asks to my colleagues on the financial management board in order for us to support it, at the same time advocating to the federal government with my territorial and provincial colleagues. One of the things that I have to say is I am very thankful to the team that we have at our early learning and child care table with provinces and territories. We've agreed to stick together on this one because we see the great value of this program at the end of the day and the need for attainable, accessible, and good quality child care at the end of the day across this country. And I also have to say a big thank-you because that support and sticking together also means that they are sticking together with their territorial counterparts and recognizing that we are different and elevating our voices at the table. So it's two-pronged.
In the meantime I am going to financial management board and saying, hey, I am exceeding my budget here. I need your support on this. And on the other side, I am still looking for flexibilities and increases to budget line items from the federal government. Because at the end of the day, this was a program that was very important to the Liberal government to implement. I am not saying it's not a good program; I am saying it's a great program. But if we're going to have programs like this, we need to make sure that they're properly funded across the country. Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Next on my list I have is the Member from Monfwi.
Okay. According to your -- I mean, it's relevant but to your business plan, labour market programs, providing pathway to employment for NWT residents. So I just wanted to ask the Minister, we have the Aurora College, it's on here, but it doesn't outline. So I just wanted to ask the Minister if the early learning and child care program will be offered -- I see the scholarships, but will the program be offered within the next fiscal year? Thank you.
Thank you. I will go to the Minister.
Thank you so much. So it is -- the early learning program is currently offered at post-secondary institutions in the Northwest Territories. And in addition to it being offered in the territory, we do also provide the scholarship funding as well. Thank you.
