Question has been called.

Motion carried.

We’ll continue on page 8-33. Mr. Bromley.

Mr. Chair, I have to briefly add my voice to those that are saying that we really can’t continue on this road. I’m sure it’s a tough one. There are people that clearly need support and so on, but there are also able-bodied non-working people out there that are getting a lot of support. I think we need some thinking about how we can engage those people in ways that address some of our accelerating costs. You know, cutting firewood is a pretty darn good place to start — since we’ve got energy issues — but also more creative ways that might add to their skills and contribute to their potential to participate in society more fully. So I just want to throw that out. I welcome any comments from the Minister before I go on here.

Thank you,

Mr. Bromley. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr.

Chair.

Certainly we, as a department, will be focusing on those individuals who are able and employable, trying to get them off income support and trying to get them to work for the elders and haul wood and whatever the case may be. That’s one of the areas that my department is pursuing, to focus on those individuals who can certainly be out there. They can enter the workforce, the transition period. We’re there to assist them. We have programs that they’ll be taking as well. I think this will be a very modest move for the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.

Thank you for those remarks from the Minister.

I have, perhaps, a different appreciation and value for haulers of water and hewers of wood. I think they’re both extremely honourable vocations and contribute a lot to our thinking and our personal philosophies. I’m sure if we talked to elders, we could learn a lot about that.

But on a somewhat unrelated subject, I’d like to make a motion.

I move that this committee strongly recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment take immediate action to review and improve the Childcare Subsidy Program to ensure that child care operations receive stable levels of funding regardless of daily fluctuations in the attendance of children due to sickness or family emergency. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you,

Mr. Bromley. A motion is on the floor and is being distributed now. The motion has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently if a child is missing for five days from a child care facility, the facility gets docked the subsidy for that child. If several children are away — for example, if a flu bug were to hit the community or a number of families travelled to some special occasion — this loss of subsidy can be significant, and it leads to pretty wild swings from month to month.

As far as I know we’re the only jurisdiction that does it this way. Most jurisdictions base the subsidy on a previous year’s record of attendance, and I know that’s much favoured by our facility operators. The difficulty is that the costs that these facilities have are fixed costs. They don’t fluctuate month by month, if a couple of children are not there — things

like staff and rent and fuel bills. This has been brought up repeatedly by these folks that are struggling to keep these operations going.

It hasn’t been addressed yet, so this motion is really an attempt. Again, I think it can be broadly supported, even by the Cabinet. It’s a fairly common sense sort of thing, not a large cost to it, but it would smooth things out and support our workers in these community facilities. So I’m strongly in support of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you,

Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m in support of the motion as well. I think, really, the issue here is stabilized funding for these child care providers. When they’re out there and they’re creating a spot and it’s being held up by someone who’s not paying, that puts them in an awful difficult position if the government is starting to withhold money.

I pay for child care, and at the start of the month, the child care provider says, “Where’s your cheque?” I hand the cheque over, and it’s for the whole month. I think the government should be paying under that principle as well. As long as that child is meeting the requirement to be there, the government should be paying for that spot.

The other thing is that spot is being held in such a way that nobody else can take it up, but that person who’s providing the day-home can’t make any money off it. It puts them in an awkward position that they’re not making any money off this situation, so how do they pay staff? I think we should base this theory on a little more like what’s happening in real life in the private sector. For a regular family to come in, they have to pay for the fees up front every month. I think that’s the bare minimum of what I think the government should be offering here: if somebody qualifies for child care, we pay for that month.

You know, it’s their choice. If they don’t want to make whatever minimums are prescribed, then obviously we stop paying. But to start pulling out funding midway through the month and whatnot doesn’t create a stabilized environment, and I think it puts the whole organization of that day-home or daycare facility at risk. I think the government should wear that, because when we’re a funding source and we’re pulling the carpet out from underneath these organizations, they do nothing but fall.

So the fact is this motion is a good motion that will help with that environment. It is hard enough out there to find a solid, quality child care facility or

child care home, and to be messing around with these providers, I think, is crazy.

The fact is, they need stabilized funding, and I’ll leave it at that. I’ll be voting in favour of the motion. Thank you.

Thank you,

Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m also in favour of the motion, and I don’t want to repeat everything my colleagues Mr.

Bromley and

Mr. Hawkins have said.

Suffice it to say the key word, too, is “stabilize.” If you look at a couple of areas that the department has targeted for reductions, the $1.242 million for student child subsidy, also the $1.3 million I spoke of earlier for wage subsidies…. I think if we got creative a little bit, we could shore up child care services in the Northwest Territories. If you take that $1.242 million that you’re reducing and earmark it for stabilizing the funding for child care, that, to me, makes a lot of sense. Also the wage subsidy money that was cut, you could take a portion of that and earmark it for child care workers.

Those are the two things that are resulting in daycares and spaces shutting down across the territory: the lack of workers and also the fluctuations in funding. I think if we can fix those two things, operators out there would stand a chance of staying around for a while. So I’m in agreement with the motion, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you,

Mr. Ramsay. To the motion. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that clients who are getting daycare support through Income Support should pay at the beginning of the month like any other client and that there should be a reporting mechanism back to the care provider on the number of days that that child attended. If there is a continual history of decline or attendance is dropping off, then I think that matter can be reviewed.

But I think that it’s more than just stabilizing the income of the day-home or the daycare. It is stabilizing the ability of people on Income Support to get daycare, because the fact of the matter is that if somebody is trying to run an operation like this, they’re not going to be inclined to accept children whose attendance there is being subsidized by the government if they’re not treated like any other client, i.e., as Mr. Hawkins said, paying in advance so that they can count on that space.

So I’m interested in making sure that those people who do want to go to work and who do want reliable

and affordable child care can…. Not just reliable but regulated. A lot of people go to work, and they try to find just anybody to babysit their kids so they can go to work, and sometimes that’s not the best environment for the child. I’m about making sure that those children, whose parents are being assisted through Income Support, have just as good an opportunity as any other child to access quality daycare. It’s about stabilizing the service for them as much as it is stabilizing it for the daycare provider. So I will be supporting this motion.

Thank you,

Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Often in my communities that’s what the providers also talk about — that they’ve got no control over the level of funding that they receive. Small operations in small communities depend on consistent revenue, I guess you would call it. We are providing the basis for funding them. I was thinking that we’re not really asking for more for the providers; we’re asking for consistent funding. You’re able to do that if you’re able to average it over six months or a year or whatever example or method the government would choose, should they choose to listen to us on this motion. So with that, I will be supporting this motion, to create that stability in the communities and for all our child care providers out there as well.

Thank you,

Mr. Menicoche.

The question has been called. I’ll call upon Mr. Bromley, as the mover, to conclude debate on the motion. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A number of good points have come out here. Basically, it’s clear that we have a problem, we have the ability to fix it, and an opportunity here. O&M grants for daycares really should be changed to that of schools. Just because a child misses time at school does not mean that you lose funding for that child, and it should be the same thing for these daycare facilities. Grants could be applied for annually, an assessment made and a schedule of four quarterly instalments established. This provides predictability and also timely payment, which is another problem that a lot of these facilities face with slow payments. They just don’t have the depth to be able to withstand that. Of course, this assessment process by the government could be based on attendance the prior year, and can be adjusted. So I think there are lots of good reasons to move in this direction, Mr. Chair. I think we’re ready for the question.

Motion carried.

We’ll now continue to consider details for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We’re on page 8-33. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regard to Income Security, I think that we also have to ensure that the seniors that are in their homes are able to remain in their homes as long as they possibly can. Similar to the motion passed previous to this in regard to seniors that are in public housing, I think, more importantly, to be fair to seniors in public housing and seniors in their own homes, we have to have a fair playing field. I think it’s appropriate that the seniors that do live in their own homes live comfortably.

I have a situation in my riding that I’ll use. There’s a senior that lives in my riding. She taught in the education system for almost 30 years. She retired. She got cancer; she’s been battling cancer off and on for about ten years. She still lives independently in her home. She sews; she does whatever she can to maintain the lifestyle, and she has a pension from the government. But again, because her son works during the summer months on the ferry, her income exceeds the amount of money she’s allowed to be able to maintain the seniors’ fuel subsidy program, because of that extra income that her son brings in —which is about $30,000 working on a ferry for three months of the year. He is the only one that’s a caregiver; he takes care of his mom and he tries to cut wood and do whatever he can to maintain the home. But at the end of the day, she’s lost…. Every year she applies year after year, being told, “Sorry, your household income is above that income threshold for the household income.” If she was independent and on her own she would have got the subsidy, but because her son earns an extra $30,000 working on the ferries during the summer months.... And again, it’s one of our government employees whose job is questionably on the chopping block.

As a government we have to find a system that’s fair to people — for that fuel subsidy that these people depend on and with this year the price of fuel going up — realizing that these people are struggling as it is. Even the ones that do get the fuel subsidy, in most cases they have to pay out of their pensions to get through the winter.