Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement today, clearly there are a lot of examples of how early childhood education can be implemented and certainly it’s a program that can start a phenomenal difference into a young person’s life. If we build that foundation it means a lot.
I say to this McLeod government, don’t just heed the warning from us. I mean, there are many parents and experts that will tell you this is such a critical part for the development of our children and the future of our children in our education system. We all know good education is the backbone of a solid foundation going forward in someone’s future. There are a lot of researchers that have often pointed out about the fact that a good education gives people more opportunity which keeps them away from at risk.
It would be nice, of course, if we could develop a universal early childhood education program, but the fact is we know it won’t be like that. The reality is we could stand up here today and get behind this type of initiative to say we’re going to make sure we have some type of program that is invested and involved in every community. So our kids, just like the old American saying goes, no child left behind. We could take on that attitude, the positive attitude and can-do approach which says in the Northwest Territories we’re going to try real hard and make sure that no child is left behind by serious intervention and investment by our territory.
Earlier today I also pointed out the fact that there are different domains or certainly different pillars recognized under early childhood development: social development, physical development, intellectual development, creative development, and certainly emotional development. Each in its own way is a pillar to the future that these kids are moving forward on. It’s important that we invest in ways to recognize some kids need more help than others in certain areas. It’s these early assessments that are so critical because let’s invest at a time when we can truly make a difference on the longer term outcome of people. By sitting here ignoring this possibility or opportunity, if I may say, what we’re doing is setting them up for a long-term failure. By all means, we’re not just failing them, we’re failing ourselves.
Children living in low-income households are sometimes those who need this most. I don’t want to get down to the nitty-gritty of describing one household or the other, but there are certain elements of kids coming from homes that don’t get the support that they need and this is where government needs to step in and help play the role. It doesn’t mean if you’re coming from a family that’s well to do or not. Any kid could struggle with these types of burdens. Certainly this is our chance to invest. Our educators are asking for this and we need to make sure that we provide not only the stuff that I talked about, but we need to provide a nurturing and stimulating environment that helps reward and invest in these kids to bring out their best. We need a plan and a strategy that works on language development. We need to look at the uniqueness of these children through assessment
and say, you know what, they may need a little strength in certain areas.
Recently I was at a school board meeting with a couple of my other colleagues and they talked about one child which is one of many that showed up and couldn’t speak for the longest time there when they entered school. That was only one example of several examples they had provided. This is the type of resource capacity that the schools need to make sure that our kids get the best start. If they show up in our education system, we can’t expect kindergarten to solve all the problems going forward. Some of this early intervention is highlighted already by my colleagues here. It has to start at age three or even, in special cases, earlier.
There are so many elements to early childhood education and I’m sure I’ve said some of them. Certainly not all of them. My colleagues are doing certainly their best to highlight the importance of this particular program. The fact is we have to make a territorial program that’s understood and implemented in all regions. Not just Yellowknife or the big centres such as Hay River and Inuvik, but into our communities because they’re so critical.
That’s all I really want to get down to on this particular subject today. It’s a passionate subject not just of myself but all the other colleagues here. If we have recognized one important thing, it’s about the value that we have recognized that we’ve placed on our youth and how important that particular issue is. There is no better investment than investing in our children. It doesn’t come down to anything more complicated than that. We can hope all we want, but today we can make the right type of investments. A solid early childhood education program, as I talked about earlier today, is the type of investment that we need to do. That would be the foundation, truly a hallmark of our North.