Thank you, Madam Chair. As I said, and I'll commit again, when we meet with the committee, we'll be happy to share with the committee what other jurisdictions are doing and how they meet the requirements for providing people or for providing for an education program for people with special needs. We set out in the act that every child deserves an opportunity to have their educational needs met in the classroom. That's the way our system is based. The expectation is that if a child needs support it will be given. It is up to each individual divisional education council to make sure that that's being delivered. Because we don't have in existence an assessment of what the needs are across the Northwest Territories. There's nobody in the Territories who can tell me how many kids we have that have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder or who may have other challenges, whether its autism or audio processing problems. There are a whole range of needs and most kids don't fit neatly into a little square over here that says they just need special needs all the time.
Most kids range on a continuum so that they may need some assistance at some times for literacy. They may need some assistance at some times for numeracy, or they may need some other special assistance at some times. It is up to the classroom teacher, the administration in the school and school boards to take the funding that we deliver and put it into appropriate programming for all of those kids.
Most kids don't need a full-time aid. We have a number of kids that do. I think it is also important to remember that this funding is supposed to address those kids who need challenge education, as well. This isn't just for kids with problems of getting through school or problems meeting the regular academic program. This is also intended to assist schools to provide funding for those kids who may need a challenge.
In terms of why I didn't know that it wasn't all being spent, I don't know how anybody outside of the ministry could have known this sort of information beforehand. It wasn't made available to us when I was a Regular Member, but I am quite happy to make it available to the Regular Members now what happened in the past. When I became aware of the issue, Madam Chair, I very quickly issued a directive that said this shall change. I insisted that the school boards report on how they are spending their money so that I am now comfortable in saying that we aren't putting out $3 million more for special needs than what is being spent. I am comfortable with our current directive and the requirement that I have made for reporting that the money is being spent appropriately. I have no doubt that we will be able to demonstrate that we need to spend more.
The Member is quite right; 20 percent may not do it. I have never made any claim that that is going to be the magic number. What I have said is that we are clearly not where we need to be. We need to spend more, so we have embarked on a three-year program to increase the amount of spending that we are going to put into the system to try and achieve the improved outcomes for kids who need to see that. If it takes more funding than that, Madam Chair, then I would hope that the Legislative Assembly will agree that we need to put more money in. Thank you, Madam Chair.