Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, child care providers have been reaching out to MLAs recently and they feel that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is forcing them to collect sensitive personal information, including ethnicity and sex assigned at birth, and they feel that they are under threat of losing funding if they refuse. Forcing families to disclose this information as a condition of service to access or funding constitutes indirect or adverse effect discrimination, non-voluntary statistical reporting. Providers now feel caught between compliance and protecting families' privacy, putting them at legal and ethical risk. So I'd like to ask the Minister responsible how does ECE justify mandatory collection of ethnicity and sex assigned at birth despite clear human rights protections? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Range Lake. Minister of ECE.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, the demographic information that is found within the regulations for education, culture and employment's early learning and child care regulations is not new information that's being collected. I think it's worth stating here, Mr. Speaker, that this information, while listed in the regulations and while asked of early learning and child care providers to collect it, is not then collected by ECE and it is not mandatory that they collect it and then receive funding for it. No one is not receiving funding. So funding is still flowing. It is also an option for child care providers to simply note on their forms that a parent declined to provide this information, and that is respected as well by the department. But it is very important that parents and child care providers know that funding is not being withheld for not providing that information, and ECE does not maintain that information within the department. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, that's good news, but that's not what's being communicated clearly because that's why we're getting complaints. So can the Minister explain why this happened? Why was individual-level non-anonymized data collection suggested to providers instead of typical aggregated, anonymized statistical reporting as we see in federal programs? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, this information is found in the regulations in anticipation of information requests for reporting to the federal government. But without clear indication from the federal government as to how they intend to use that information and how that information can be ensured that it is respecting the privacy of Northerners, ECE is not collecting it from child care providers and is not providing it, obviously, to the federal government either. So while we are asking that ELCC providers, so daycare providers, collect that information and have it on file for families, if families decline to provide that information that is something that can be placed on a form. Like I said, that information is not collected and maintained by ECE and is certainly, obviously, not handed over to the federal government either. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you to the Minister for making that clear. Will the Minister endeavour to communicate with all early childhood providers and let them know -- clarify this position so there's no more confusion, they're not under this misapprehension that they're going to lose funding if they don't do this, and that they can clearly indicate that parents decline. Can the Minister commit to sending out letters or using the departmental resources to get that clarification out so there is no more confusion in the territory. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I have a draft here that will go out to MLAs, and at the exact same time communication will also go out to child care providers as well today. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.
