Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just to the Member's earlier comments, typically in our process we do actually allow the sort of shaping of the dough by all Members in this House, because we have what is called the business planning process. Unfortunately, because of the timing of the election, we were rushed into getting a budget into the House to try and have the money to spend by April 1st. So we didn't have the chance of all of us working together on the dough to come up with an understanding of what things would look like. We took what the previous government had put together and brought it forward with some very small changes in order to try and accommodate the wishes of all Members, which was that we would reduce some of the spending so that we didn't see such a big deficit. The evaluation was always scheduled for the termination of the program. The previous government brought forward this initiative as a three-year time-limited program, with the intent that it would wrap up after three years. There was no money in the fiscal framework to continue past that in the way it was presented. So it was always planned that the evaluation would take place at the termination of the program so that you'd have the best chance of having programs up and running and completed, and then you could evaluate them. So that is why the scheduling was set as it was. The evaluations will be done very shortly, and I would be prepared to share them with the committee.
Charles Dent on Question 81-15(3): Early Childhood Development Program Funding
In the Legislative Assembly on March 25th, 2004. See this statement in context.
Return To Question 81-15(3): Early Childhood Development Program Funding
Question 81-15(3): Early Childhood Development Program Funding
Item 7: Oral Questions
March 24th, 2004
Page 301
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