Caitlin Cleveland

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...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So absolutely, the investment in Aurora College, as the Member says, all our eggs in one basket, was something that, you know, has grown over decades. And so now we're in a position where we're wanting to change the way that Aurora College operates in the Northwest Territories and change the expectation of this government on the way that it operates, and so that's the transition we find ourselves in right now. So part of that transition is both making sure that they've got the legislation that they need in order to continue to create that distance between us so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, here in the Northwest Territories we certainly have a unique governance model that's found in one place across Canada, and that is here in the Northwest Territories where we really have a decentralized system here, and so what you find is that ECE sets the overall JK to 12 framework and funds the system while regional education bodies deliver programming and employ school staff. So what that essentially means as per the Education Act is the department just decides what the what might be, so what is our overall goal, which might be in this case, you know...

Thank you so much. So, Mr. Chair, none of our post-secondary partners have brought to me a need for legislative change for them to be able to offer micro-credentialing. We have a process that was born out of the last Assembly where we accredit programs to make sure that the piece of paper that they get is valuable not just in the Northwest Territories but also outside the borders of the territory as well. That's incredibly important when students are giving their time and dollars and pursuing post-secondary education. So we accredit under the existing Post-Secondary Education Act, but no...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the federal government rolled back their Jordan's Principle funding, and so what you see in the revised is our $14 million for our support assistants initiative. And other than that, our funding is based predominantly -- it's school funding formula that is largely based on number of students enrolled. And I think we would need an entire kind of crash course in student funding formula if we were to explain it, and nobody would want me being the one delivering that. But essentially the difference is the Jordan's Principle -- sorry, the support assistant...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, last year we had three separate allotments awarded to the Northwest Territories from the federal government. So we started off at the very beginning of the year where on January 16th of 2025, we learned that our allotment had been cut in half. From there, we received two additional allotments throughout the year. The last one was awarded to us in the very last quarter. This meant that we had a decision to make. We either had staff prepare for our program for 2026, or we worked in order to make sure that we were processing those applications...

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 very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, the issue that was raised to us at the ed leaders forum in regards to this program, and the way that ECE funds it, was that because it was based on the number of students in the school that the program was supporting, if a school was smaller and had a smaller number of students that the funding that they were receiving through ECE did not necessarily account for one full-time staff member. And as you can imagine, working in a small community, it made it more difficult for them to attract and retain a staff member that would be specialized for this...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I agree that it's important to make sure that we are transparent and that we are reporting on what we can. As far as, you know, what those items will exactly be that can be reported in real time in the business plan, I'd have to come back to the Member. As all of this stuff kind of comes together on the back end, we're very much in real time here. But certainly happy to make sure that I am asking those questions about what can be incorporated and how we can ensure that we are transparently reporting on our successes as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, in the previous school year, there was $58.6 million that flowed from the federal government to education bodies, but that would not be reflected in our budgets because those agreements and arrangements and contributions were directly from the federal government to education bodies, not to the Government of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.