Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses in,

For the record, Mr. Minister, can you introduce your witnesses, please.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have with me to my immediate right is the deputy minister, Mr. Dan Daniels, and also Mr. Paul Devitt, director of strategic business planning. Mahsi.

Thank you Mr. Minister. Welcome witnesses, General comments, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. You know, Education, Culture and Employment represents 24 percent of our total budget. The Minister said a lot of good things as to what they are providing that will help my communities in Nunakput. The $1.3 million to improve education for aboriginal students through the literacy programs, after-school programs, which is a big uptake in my home community of Tuktoyaktuk and other communities that I represent, culture orientation for new teachers coming into our riding, aboriginal student achievement coordinator position, that is going to be coming in. I would like to ask the Minister where would that be located and how the coordinator would connect with the small communities in regions where the highest aboriginal populations.

Two hundred thousand dollars for youth programs such as Northern Youth Abroad; $600,000 to improve our early childhood development programs, which is a really big asset for our kids going to preschool, getting a head start in regards to getting into kindergarten and starting on their education; improved support for arts in the schools, $200,000; the additional support for apprentices; the enhanced support of Internet use in education. Internet is an important link to the schools in Nunakput communities. I would like to commend the Minister in regards to that going forward. The $100,000 in funding to promote achievement in

secondary diploma for adults is really needed. We are at the doorstep, hopefully, with our pipeline going forward and the offshore, so staying in school and getting your education is such a big important step in the communities, and providing education for all of the Northwest Territories and those eight students we have in Sachs Harbour, so I am looking forward to making sure that we get the funding for this coming budget year to get a teacher there full time.

Mr. Chairman, the areas for improvement, improved high school education so that young people can achieve success at the outset and not have to come back to upgrade as adults. Making sure you are not social passing and making sure the students are qualified in grade 12 upon graduation. Enhancing training skills for workers and access to trades, that will especially be important with the go ahead of the Mackenzie Gas Project. Recruitment and retention of teaching staff; housing has always been an issue in the communities but we have teachers, like in my home community of Tuktoyaktuk, Miss Anne Marie Cameron, who has been there since she was Grade 4 teacher, so that is going on a long time ago and still I want to thank her to this day about all the good work she has done. She is retiring this year and, if she does, she is going to be sadly missed, but hopefully we can talk her into one more year,

You may also wish specific allocations for our region, the school for Tuktoyaktuk, the extension that is badly needed. My teaching situation in Sachs Harbour; those eight students in the community are having no education right now, sitting in the community and wondering what we are doing for the last two and half months until May, when they are done school, but I am hoping to see if we can get a teacher in there for the last two and half months for them to get some credits. I really hope we can accomplish this with the Minister and on a go-forward basis. He has a lot of good things happening in Nunakput, but in the areas of improvement I would like to get some answers to. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Thank you Mr. Jacobson. Next on the list I have Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I have a number of comments. These are not in any particular order, but some are in reference to the budget in general and some are in reference to the Minister’s opening remarks.

I would like to start off by talking about there is a statement, I think it is in the business plan, there is a trend to a decreased use of income assistance funds, but I know over the last week or two I have heard the Minister state that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment... Income support is certainly handling more income support claims. So I am a little bit concerned that if the

budget is showing a decrease in income support funding, it leads me to believe that this budget may be underfunded. When we get to that, I will probably ask some questions with regards to that.

We do have an increase, this is working from the business plans and it doesn’t actually show in the mains, but the business plans showed an increase in the department’s total budget of about $13 million, which concerns me. I have said in regards to most budgets when they go up, that I am concerned that we are consistently increasing our budgets and I wonder if we are actually, or if there is real value in what we are doing for the increases.

One of the expenses that is in this budget that I particularly disagree with is the $400,000 that is earmarked for a Nutritious Food Study, and I know in the Minister’s opening remarks that apparently has been redesigned, realigned, reprofiled to now say that this funding will be allocated to support food programs delivered by existing agencies, and goes on to describe a couple of other things. I still believe that we have the supports in place right now, we have the information and the background information, the research has been done and I still believe we should be putting an actual program in place; an on-the-ground program that is delivering foods, whether it be meals or milk into the mouths of our babes, and I don’t feel that this particular expense is going to do that the way it is described and I will have some questions for the Minister when we get to discuss that item.

I’m concerned about board reform. It hasn’t really been mentioned, but I know that there are things going on sort of behind the scenes and I’m a little concerned that there are... Well, I guess I want to know whether or not the department has plans to do any kind of changes within education boards in the next coming year.

I am pleased to see that we have a further increase in money for arts and cultural organizations. It can only stand us in good stead as we go forward. I think we’re up to $2.2 million or something like that at this point and that’s great, it’s good to see.

I’m a little bit concerned about the vague response of the department to the official languages review. There are a couple of things that are mentioned, but I’m not so sure that… We’re starting off with a symposium and, I think, with a language institute and I’m not so sure that those are going to deliver the results that we need in terms of responding to the recommendations from the standing committee in terms of the review of the official languages.

There is an increase in money for early childhood and family literacy, and I think that’s a great thing to see. We should be putting an awful lot more money into our early childhood programs, as far as I’m concerned. I’m a little bit concerned that this may be a one-time affair, and I’ll speak about that when we get to that particular page.

I’m also concerned that there is a decrease in inclusive schooling funding. It’s going down from 19 percent of budgets to 18.5 percent of education authorities’ budgets. So I’m concerned about that. I’ve had an explanation that suggests that it may not be an actual decrease in dollars, but I will speak to that when we get there.

I am pleased to see that the department is branching out in terms of high school, secondary school diplomas and is starting a process to recognize prior learning. The PLAR program, I think, is going to be a good thing. I want to reiterate that I still believe that we need to seriously consider and investigate having two different high school diplomas apart from the PLAR process, but that we need to have an academic and a non-academic high school certificate to make it more clear to students just what programs they’re in and what course they’re taking and what they will be coming out of high school with as they go on to further education.

Good news, from my perspective, on the increase to minimum wage. I’m really pleased to see that in there. I am disappointed, though, and I know that it’s not part of the… This is an O and M budget, it’s not a capital budget, but I am disappointed that there’s no consideration for Ecole Allain St-Cyr phase II expansion. There’s no money in here for planning or anything else, that I can tell.

There’s a mention, I don’t know where, in the Minister’s remarks about apprentice programs and it references two different kinds of programs. I have to say, again -- I think I said this last year -- that I am concerned that we have many different programs for apprenticeships and I think they need to be better coordinated. I think we do the same thing in several different areas, and my question about these two programs are how are they different. So I’ll have some questions when we get to that section.

Lastly, I have to take great exception to the undefined other expense, which shows up on page 10-7. We have other expenses of some $71 million and in that we have another of $2.419 million. That’s a pretty large amount to be undefined. We did get an explanation from the Finance Minister. It tells us that $2.419 is a bad debts expense. So that also is, like, okay, what is a bad debts expense? What the heck does that mean? So I would like an explanation when we get to discussing that page.

Other than that, Mr. Chair, the budget is pretty much a status quo. There are a lot of good things in here. There are some things which I don’t particularly agree with but, in general, I think it’s a budget I can live with. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Next on the list I have Mr. Bromley and then Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There were a number of things in the opening remarks from the Minister that I appreciated. One of them -- no surprise -- is the extra dollars going towards early childhood and family literacy. I think there still seems to be a focus on the kindergarten and up sort of age groups and I’m hoping, ultimately, we will focus that more and more to the earliest years. But that’s good to see.

The $1.3 million towards promoting attendance is a good response, I think, to what has been highlighted as a major concern. I think it’s been noted that kids actually miss a couple years of their schooling by the time they’ve been in school six or eight years. So that’s a big hole to plug. And the promotional campaign for parents’ awareness is good, but as, I think, my colleague Ms. Bisaro mentioned, a big gap I see is the murkiness and confusion associated with the different diplomas that can be sought in grade 12 and the agony that that leads to when students and their parents realize they cannot go on to university because of the choices they have unknowingly made. So, yes, there does need to be more counselling of the students, but I’d say a big part of that counselling should also be focused on the parents so that they’re knowledgeable and aware.

The Standing Committee on Social Programs has, for three years now, mentioned the need for some new programs in Aurora College that respond to today’s world and some of the government priorities and residential and business priorities we have, and that’s sustainable communities management, all the skills that go into managing a sustainable community in a progressive way, and the renewable energy technician. Try and get any kind of a renewable energy installed here and generally you’re looking to bring some expertise in from outside. These are a high need, real business opportunities and so on. This has been raised with the Minister many times through the committee and we’re still waiting on a response there, and it could extend to greening of the trades programs that are already in place.

I want to comment on the latest expression on the destination of $400,000 for something to do with nutritious foods. Again, the Social Programs committee has called clearly, with the support of the public, for a milk subsidy program repeatedly and repeatedly. This government has failed to put that in place. Like I say, in the last couple of weeks they’ve apparently come up with an idea to establish and coordinate an NWT Nutritious Food Steering Committee. Who’s going to be on that committee? Government departments? Non-government organizations? Other stakeholders? I can’t help but wonder how much that’s going to cost of that $400,000. It would be so beautiful, Mr. Chair, to see those dollars directed into the mouths of babes with good nutritious food, rather than talking

about it and studying it. My gosh, the number of studies we’ve got. So a big disappointment there. I’ll be asking more questions about that.

I think the early childhood programs are a move in the right direction. We also need a lot more child care subsidy programs. This is a big factor in helping us with poverty issues, you know, related to getting an education and so on. I’ll be asking some questions about that along the way. That’s an opportunity that I see. We should be using… I see a revenue. We’ll talk about that in relation to child care as well.

The official languages, again, I haven’t seen a comprehensive response to the work done by committee and the strategy in a way that reflects the priorities that I think the people have spoken to. The Aboriginal Languages Summer Institute and the conference, are those priorities that were established in that strategy by the people and were they the highest priorities? Is that where we should be starting out and how does that fit in the plan of the department to put a comprehensive approach in place given our failure on the language issue?

The income security, I also have been very pleased to see the Public Housing Rental Subsidy returned to its home. One thing that I keep hearing from people is the service aspect highlighted the other day in a Member’s statement and it’s not restricted to the seniors heating subsidy, it’s through many aspects of the Income Support Program. So I would like to know how the department is going to be tuning that up. I don’t see it in the budget, but hopefully there is much more progressive work and training being done there so we can give good quality assurance to our clients.

I was happy to see the increase to student financial assistance. It seems to be similar, maybe a little bit more than we had for the merit-based programs, which is kind of curious. I’d be interested in more details on that and we’ll get to that when we go to detail, Mr. Chair. For now, that will be it and I’ll leave my general comments at that. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Next on the list I have Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m happy with most of what was put into the budget. I’m very pleased to see the $600,000 into the small and rural and remote communities. I’m hoping that money for early childhood development programs goes into daycares in the small communities. I think that we have information from the schools indicating the value of daycare when the kids finally do get to school and kindergarten. A good daycare in the community seems to go a long ways to advancing the kids that do attend daycare and they come into the school system much better prepared. So, Mr. Chairman, I think that’s something that the department, if they don’t have this money specifically earmarked for specific programs at this

point, even part of the family literacy training can also be something that can be run along with daycare. So I think that’s something that’s important.

I think the most important thing in the school system right now, I guess because it becomes probably the most detrimental thing to success in school, is absenteeism. I think that putting that much money -- over $1.3 million -- into ensuring that the department is promoting attendance in all 49 schools across the Northwest Territories I think is something that’s very, very positive. I think that is something that comes right down to the community level. I think the communities that I represent are telling me that this could be an area where parent support workers could be put in place to help the parents and at some point the responsibility for absenteeism should be shared, not only the parent and the student, but also maybe even the schools and the boards and the department, that everybody should take responsibility for this. I realize that there are some schools that have very, very, very high attendance rates. I think the schools in Yellowknife easily carry better than 90 percent attendance rate. Unfortunately, in the small communities, that’s not the case. As I tried to indicate in a Member’s statement I made earlier in the week, the percentage of people below grade level is much, much, much higher the more school you miss. So there is definitely a direct correlation between having good marks and going to school. When you have a high absenteeism rate, then your marks are low and you are functioning at a low grade level when you are essentially going through school, advancing with the rest of the students but at the same time you are not really operating at that grade level. That is evident, as I indicated. That is something that is directly tied into absenteeism, so I feel that this is a tremendous initiative on the part of the department. I wish them all the luck in succeeding with trying to get the attendance levels up in the small communities.

I think that it is an excellent idea to put a three-part initiative into improve skills and living and working into Aurora College. It is $650,000 to support that. I think that is excellent. I think a lot of times it is difficult to get a job. Sometimes it is difficult to keep a job. I think if you improve your living and working skills and so on, and working with wellness and so on, I think that would be something that will go a long ways. I think we will recoup our investment in this by seeing more successful people across the Territories.

I am obviously pleased to see money budgeted for the community adult learning centre in Lutselk’e and the Hay River Reserve and Tsiigehtchic. I think that is something that is very positive. I am hoping that in Lutselk’e they are able to work with an instructor at the school and so on. Put that in kind of like a learning area in approximately the same

place where that school is now. I am very pleased to see that. I think that putting money in to provide opportunities for young people in small communities and to gain work experience towards long-term employment is something that, again, is excellent. It is a good response from the government. There is a fairly decent amount of money put into that to help.

I think that there is still some money in there for SFA. I think that there have been a few issues with the lack of funding for SFA. I think this addresses that issue. I think that all students, youth, that are out in school going on to post-secondary education should have as much support as this government can possibly give to them. I think that is an investment again in the future. I think that the more we invest in the youth, the more we invest in the students, the greater opportunities that the North is going to have and greater results we are going to have and more in our social spending, other areas such as income support, public housing and so on. I think that this budget here invests well in the youth.

Specifically some of the things that I think that are missing I think is that we need to have industrial arts. We need to have home economics back in the schools. I think that is important. I think all schools should have a library. I know that, of the two schools that I represent, one does not have a library. Although we were fortunate to have one of the schools from Yellowknife give us 25 boxes of library books, it was something that I think is needed. I think that the department has to look at ensuring that there are library services in all of the communities and a good start is going through the schools.

I think that, although this is not for this budget, Mr. Chairman, I think that the department has to look at capital for daycare. I think that it is something that was mentioned during the time we were doing the infrastructure acquisition plan, but now it is specifically down to the department. I think what is missing here is not supposed to be here, but what is missing, I guess overall, is there be spending in daycare but sometimes the daycares are not in the best location or they are not the best daycare as far as the building itself goes. I am looking forward to continuing to work with the department to improve the daycare building in Fort Resolution and perhaps finding a better location or maybe build a daycare onto the school in Lutselk’e. I think that is something that is another matter, but I think the department is putting some money into the early childhood development. It is the first thing I mentioned that is very positive for daycares. I am hoping that we are able to do more. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Next on the list is Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments I have is something that the Minister and I have been working on for some time. I am going to ask the Minister: how do we solidify elders into our education system? I know the Minister has been contemplating about the different systems that support this and systems that don’t support the elders in our schools. The Minister has been at it for a long time, but I think it is time now that he comes and tells us this is how we are going to do it. We have to have some action here. He held this for almost two years, trying to get elders into our schools. As we continue talking, elders are leaving us and some elders we want them into our schools, but for reasons unknown, they are unable to be in our school system. I am disappointed that this hasn’t been done yet. See how we can get the elders into our school. I will be asking the Minister in terms of where do we fit these elders into our school.

I want to tell the Minister that I am very happy to hear that there is going to be a mandatory orientation for all teachers into our culture in the Northwest Territories. It is a long overdue requirement of the education system. I am glad to see this is going to go forward. I look forward with the Minister and, most importantly, the local education authorities and our local education councils in our communities to see what type of input we are going to have to put this into motion. I hope it is not coming down instead of from the bottom up. When teachers are coming into our communities, they are going to have a good orientation, hopefully, on the land, not in the school and in the community. I know they do this in one of the Tlicho communities and other communities where they bring everybody out to the land and teach about our culture. I am looking forward to that, seeing that the community can do this for our teachers. I think that is a significant step in terms of a better education and having teachers understand who we are, Dene or Metis or Inuvialuit people. I think that is really important. I want to congratulate the Minister on that.

That is one thing, but Cabinet’s rollout is another thing. I hope you can do it within the life of this government. I want to also say to the Minister that there are dollars going into the smaller remote communities. He has been listening to us in that area. I look forward to seeing through the detail as to how it is going to roll out into our small and remote communities

I am glad that the Minister is putting a very important symposium, this spring 2010, on our language and I look forward to the rollout of that symposium in the North here, how we are going to work with our communities.

The one point I would like to say is that the Minister is going to put $100,000 to promote and facilitate

access to Northwest Territories secondary school diplomas for adults. I don’t really know what that means, until we get more into details as to these dollars here. I want to let the Minister know that the two gentlemen, the two young guys that went out to school were hoping to do well in school and get some funding and support from this government or the federal government. It is disheartening that they didn’t get their support and are back in the community of Tulita and doing nothing. They are all rambunctious, ready to go and want to do these things and now they are in Tulita. It is terrible. We certainly let them down big time. I am going to fight for these guys here. It is just awful. These two young guys had graduated, this one guy had graduated, one grade 12 course diploma and the other guy... Something has got to get done. I have that issue here, it is bugging me.

I want to ask the Minister, after, in terms of the smooth transition from his department to housing in terms of the Public Housing Subsidy. From what I know, there is nothing smooth, it is always rocky. So how are we going to have a seamless transition or a smooth transition to housing? There is nothing smooth, Mr. Chairman. We like to see it on paper but, in reality, you know, it is not that, so I want to work with him on that. I am very happy that the Minister has agreed to do that, listen to the people on this side. I am very happy that the Ministers have decided that this needs to happen. How you get over that side and start it up, it might be just a whole window dressing, rub off the ECE and put on NWT Housing Corporation, the same policies, I don’t know.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say that the food and nutrition...

Excuse me, Mr. Yakeleya, the time may have expired but I will allow you to continue on tomorrow as the first one on the list. So with that, I would like to allow the Minister to respond to the questions tomorrow first thing with Committee of the Whole. With that I would like to thank the Ministers’ witnesses. At this point, I will rise and report progress. Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses out.

Can I have the report of Committee of the Whole, please, Mr. Krutko?

Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Tabled Document 62-16(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2010-2011, and would like to report progress. I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko, Do we have a seconder? The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

---Carried

Item 23, third reading of bills, Mr. Clerk, orders of the day.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Tuesday, February 9th , at 1:30 p.m.

---ADJOURNMENT

The House adjourned at 6:06 p.m.