Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start off by saying that I’m really happy to see the review of the Early Childhood Development Framework happening. I think there’s quite a considerable amount of new research and insights into this area and the opportunity for gains that can influence our effectiveness in many, many areas. I look forward to that.

Already in this short session so far we’ve passed two motions dealing with education and I hope the Minister has heard those. They were broadly supported and I think in the first area, the Aboriginal student achievement that’s mentioned here under school system, I’m happy to see extra effort there. I hope it’s wisely used. We clearly need to do a better job in this area.

I want to point out just by way of an example related to the motion, the Phoenix School in Fort Smith is one that’s been working. It’s graduated 30 students that probably would not have graduated or did not graduate because the regular system was

not appropriate for their learning. Twenty more are anticipated to graduate this year. Just when the school is demonstrating its effectiveness after years of getting it together, we’re coming along and chopping it off at the knees. I’m assuming that this Aboriginal Student Achievement program could put support at least in those areas where programs have demonstrated they’re successful and should not be cut.

I, again, appreciate the increased support for the arts. I think we’ve done a good job there. I’m not one to say we can never do a better job, but I think we can be happy that we’ve made some real progress in this area.

The $300,000 for the expansion of the community-based Teacher Education Program that the Minister mentioned in the South Slave, what I hear from residents down there is some of them at least would sooner see support continue to things like Phoenix School where there’s a demonstrated success. We need to graduate high school students before we get into this program. Having said that, I recognize a real need in this area and I appreciate the Minister responding to that need. I think there are other regions that could use that effort as well.

The apprenticeship and employment development, the new $925,000 for this coming year to support employment in small and remote communities by way of wage subsidies, I think this is again an opportunity to put into action what I spoke to earlier today in the budget address. That is to spend that wisely and in a way that contributes to reaching many of our goals beyond just employment. We have an opportunity to influence things that will contribute to our local economies, our social fabric and our improved environment if it’s spent wisely. This is another specific opportunity for that.

Again, the review of the student financial assistance. I think to some degree we’ve been providing the Minister with a review or contributions to that review and I hope he’s been listening. There’s a clear need of recognition of support for veterinary services. That hopefully will fall under this review. The policy needs to be put in place for 2011-2012 with funding to start the following fiscal year. Again that policy, we’ve let it lapse. We need to re-establish that.

There are a number of areas where we have been talking to the Minister for the life of our term and haven’t seemed to make progress. One area is, of course, the community-wide milk subsidy in those communities where milk is sold prohibitively expensive. I stick with the theme of the opportunities we have for real advances across a suite of government goals. This is the single most effective thing we could do in that area. It’s been demonstrated by health professionals where these problems lie. The Minister came out with a Healthy Foods Program of some kind, $400,000, a one-time

effort and then walked away leaving people falling flat. Again I have to underline that, underscore that and mention again that we have been repeatedly calling for programs in Aurora College that provide sustainable community administrators and renewable energy technicians, and so far we’ve seen no action on that.

We know that the Program Review Office that we have heard exists and is working did a comprehensive review of adult literacy and basic education programs and drew some pretty strong conclusions there. I’m looking forward to seeing how those conclusions have made it into the department’s budget this coming fiscal year. I’ll leave it at that for now.