Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I will try to cover all questions and concerns that were addressed here today.
First of all, when we talk about the 1 percent increase over the year period from now, I’m just glad that we received an increase of 1 percent and not a decrease. Yes, we do have a greater opportunity for our ECE department to move forward. We have greater things on the go. I think we just have to be creative and innovative within our department. That’s the direction I gave to my department, that we need to think creatively how we can maneuver and tackle all these different opportunities out there with what we have as a budget.
Dealing with education in the small communities, it’s been brought up on the AATs over time, mostly highlighting the small communities. I think we’re doing something a bit different than before where ASA we’ve reached out to the communities. We wanted to hear from the communities’ perspective. They’re the experts and we wanted to hear them out, so we did that. And it does capture AATs as well. As I indicated in my opening comments, there is a plan in place for implementation of ASA, an action plan towards that, so I’m truly looking forwards to rolling out the program. We have done that already to some degree on some of the small initiatives. I did highlight in my opening remarks, as well, mandatory orientation for teachers, cultural orientation and so forth. We’ll continue to do that.
Just tracking of students after they leave high school to college and university and work. We can’t do it all as a department but I’m hoping the communities are doing their part, because they have career development in communities, as well, and band councils and municipalities and so forth. I think we all need to get together and highlight those
certain individuals that have been in the system, because once they leave the college – because we sponsor them through SFA – then we don’t know where they go at times. But if their name shows up in a trade or an apprenticeship program, then they’re on the system again. But this is an area that has to be collaborated between the communities and our department and other departments as well.
The adult education, there’s been talk about the ALBE federal funding. Federal funding is strictly towards enhancing our ALBE program. We will be monitoring and working closely with the college, and I believe we just received a planning process for the funding that’s been identified, and I believe my department is going through that document. We will be working closely with them in identifying the key topics that have been discussed here around the table.
Income support clientele going down. That was great to hear from the Sahtu region. I wish every community had the economic boost as the Sahtu so we can have those people off income support. That is the hope and dream. We will continue to push in that venue.
Also, there was talk about some clientele, I guess, income support, where community members expect handouts. I guess I can provide an example where community members want to go duck hunting for elders and they ask this individual walking on the street who says, well, I can’t go because I have an income support appointment. It was an embarrassing moment for that individual to be asking that but… Anyway, there are productive choices that the Member has stated and that maybe providing more detailed information on the progress to date. We can certainly provide that to the Members.
Arts and culture, of course, over the years we’ve increased the funding and we will continue to do so. It sounds like there wants to be more emphasis on that. The museum, it is a major tourism economy for the Northwest Territories, so I’m also happy to see the money identified to repair the fire damage.
There is talk about the language and the culture preservation and as we get into more detail we can discuss that further.
Early childhood development. It’s been the forefront of our discussions since we started and we will continue to do so. ASA is also the forefront of discussion. We talked about the zero to three years we should start early. We agree. But at the same time, the parents need to be involved. It’s the parents’ responsibility, as well, when the child is breastfeeding. The parents need to be there. But we, as the department, what can we do to assist those parents? If we can provide some programming and some parental guidance, because some kids are having kids as well. There is a lot of work in this area. ASA has identified this
as a priority too. We’ll do our part working along with the Department of Health and Social Services and also the community organizations to make this an effective program.
The revised ECD framework versus not renewed, those are discussions that we will be having. Training early childhood workers, the college has been very successful delivering that Early Childhood Certification Program over the years. With any programs, if there needs to be room for improvement, we’ll definitely pursue that with the college. There have been a lot of changes in the college programming. This is an area of interest, especially in the early childhood development, so we’ll definitely pursue that further with the college. More emphasis on the early years and early health, I believe Mr. Bromley alluded to.
The Anti-Poverty Strategy, we are actively involved with that with the committee that’s been established, along with Health and Social Services and other departments. We’ll continue to contribute towards this great initiative.
The Auditor General’s recommendation, key indicators, performers, measures, so forth, I totally agree that we need to have those mechanisms in place to follow through with all of the recommendations that have been brought to our attention. We will be following through with each and every recommendation. We do have an action plan in place that’s been created to tackle those areas.
Number of students excused, peer passing, I believe that the Aboriginal Student Achievement will definitely capture that. When we talk about Aboriginal Student Achievement we talk about the other students, as well, and compare them to Alberta. Those are the areas that will be captured through the Early Childhood Development Framework as well. This is a very serious area for us. It’s been brought up in this House on several occasions that some of our students are not passing and then a lot of questions. My department’s been working on this particular area, working closely with the school boards as well. We’ll continue to do that.
Program review office integrating into 2013-2014 budget. As we move forward that will be part of the discussion that we need to have. When we talk about the new budget that will be coming on stream and how we can integrate that program review and the recommendations brought forward.
There was talk about the Inuvik Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, the committee that was struck – and there’s one here in Kaw Tay Whee as well. There’s an ASA committee that’s been established. It’s been working well to date but from my understanding, meeting with the MLA and the mayor, there’s been some lack of community involvement as well. We want, we’re trying to find
out what’s truly happening and through the school boards, the funding that we give them, if they could access that because with ASA we’re still in the planning stages, the implementation. Once that kicks in, then there will definitely be some support mechanism there. It’s very disheartening and sad to hear that the committee members departed, but I’m hoping they will be revived again.
The Member is correct that they reach out to our youth at a young age. That should be our overall goal.
The ALSA program, I believe there have been seven grads this year. I could be wrong but Behchoko also had a grad in the ALSA program. So we want to make this even more, I guess the deliverance into the communities, into the regions. Because without them it’s going to be very difficult to deliver Aboriginal language programming into the school system. This is an area that what we tackled and we want to improve even further.
Anti-bullying legislation has been brought up in the House. My department has been actively busy pursuing that with research that has been done. Talks a couple weeks ago on this particular subject. The community members were asking what kind of legislation are we looking at. We wanted to look at the broad sector of a policy that is a directive from the department onto all the schools in 33 communities so they can have their policy, their own community perspective policy on how to deal with anti-bullying. We are moving forward on this and we will be meeting with the standing committee as we conclude our discussion on this particular subject.
PYs at headquarters. I totally agree that they should be in the regional communities. That’s part of our overall goals and objectives of this government to decentralize. We’ve heard in this House already and in Detah when we first initially gathered. We’ll do what we can, if we can find suitable positions in the community. Of course the housing will be a challenge. Those are the areas we need to highlight, but it is in the works. We’re working closely with HR department on this perspective.
Graduation levels should go up and also even the graduation rates. There again, I totally agree that we need to do more. We need to work with the school boards because they’re responsible for the operation of their school systems in the communities. We’ll pressure them more to produce more of the true graduates that can go to post-secondary without upgrading. At the same time, when we first started ASA, we heard it’s about awareness. The parents are sometimes not involved, are not aware of what their kids are taking. I think it’s a matter of educating ourselves, whether it be the department going to the communities or the school board going to the
communities, having a forum with the parents, or one-on-one sessions. Over time I’ve heard some parents don’t know what some of their kids are taking in high school. We want every child to be successful in our school system. As parents – I do have kids, as well – we want them to succeed in life. I read to them as much as I can at home and I know what program they’re involved in, but unfortunately it’s not like that in every household. This is an area that we need to tackle together. Not just the Department of Education, Culture and Employment but the school boards, the community leaders, the parents, the grandparents. We all have to do our part in this.
The Official Languages Act recommendations. It is coming forward. I’m glad the Member raised that issue. We just reviewed it and I believe it’s next week that we’ll be before standing committee on this particular subject. We want to act on the recommendations brought forward. Some of the areas will be ongoing work that’s part of the recommendations, but we want to address those next week when we’re before standing committee.
The college, ALBE possibly not being successful and possibly would like to see some changes in this area. This has been addressed with the college already. I also wanted to see more at the community-based level, not just ALBE but accounting program or other trade programs, certification, management certification program. That’s what’s been asked for at the community level. This will certainly be addressed with the college again. This is an area that the funding has been identified by the federal government, so we are again working closely as a department with the college to identify those needs at the community level.
Independent Aurora College campus and residence. This is an area that has been discussed in the House on numerous occasions. If I had $100 million we would have the campus right now. I don’t have that $100 million in capital funds. At the same time, we are making progress. We are in the final stages of extending our lease with Northern United Place which will allow us some time to deal with this in part of the capital planning process. As the Member alluded to, enough talking. We still have to talk with our partners to create partnerships and to identify funds. Without them this won’t be possible. Nowadays, even at the federal level, they’re talking about partnerships. We’ve had, a couple weeks ago, a meeting on this particular subject, just a preliminary discussion, and the library was brought up at that time too as part of the college campus. These are just some of the exploration that we’re pursuing with the various potential partners. We’ll continue to have that dialogue. Especially this fall, we’re gathering all the stakeholders on this subject, once we sign out the lease agreement for
extension. So we’ll keep the Members in the loop of our progress on this particular subject.
Enhancing education technology for our students. Language apps was a very successful project and now we’re dealing with other languages that are still outstanding. There are Smart Boards in classrooms that have been very successful to date and we’ll continue to invest in those high-tech technologies for our students.
There is an extremely large population of young people in the Northwest Territories. This is an area of interest to us, how we can deal with that. There’s also, again working with HR department on developing our own human resources strategy, the needs of the people, I guess, down the road. We also need to partner with the communities, the development corporations, the band councils. They’re the ones that are experts on where their community members are because they have band lists, they have community lists. We need to work with them.
There is a lack of capital infrastructure for aging infrastructures in the communities. We need to go over those. Every capital planning process, we go through the communities and regions on what their most critical needs are and it’s based on that the decision is being made. We’ll have to be mindful of those preschools the Member has alluded to.
Also establishing trade centres in the communities. Again, the Member alluded to creating partnerships. I totally agree with that, that we need to step up to the plate and work with the communities. We have done that in the past and we should pursue it even further. I’m open to the concept as well.
Western Arctic Leadership Program. I believe there’s been involvement over the past several years. ECE has been involved. ENR and Enbridge, I believe. Our contribution over the years, $275,000 per year, has always been part of our contribution. Again, at the end of the day it was the decision of the board not to continue with this programming. Well, you know, we provided great extension into the communities. Maybe they’ve highlighted it as well. It was the decision of the board so we have to respect that decision. If they were to continue that, $275,000 would have been disbursed this year.
The need for a university to focus more on whether it be climate change or scientific research, I totally agree. We talked about this just the other day as well. I’ll be meeting with my counterparts from Nunavut and Yukon territories to specifically talk about the University of the North. Those are the discussions that we’ve been having with the federal government. Chuck Strahl of the day, at that time, but now we have Mr. Duncan, so it will certainly be addressed with that mandate as well. I believe I captured almost all of it. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.