Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for his comments. I have to respectfully disagree. I don’t think that we have to raise revenues through taxes. There are other options that are available to us, and some of those options were suggested in the summaries from the roundtable.

So I’d like to know from the Minister, other than looking at taxes, has the department looked at other options to increase our revenue sources, such as resource rents, for instance. Thank you.

Thank you. We haven’t looked at resource rents per se. What we are looking at and what we’ve tried to invest money in over the years is, for example, to increase the amount of immigration into the Northwest Territories. Right now our population is either static or, in some cases, shrinking marginally, which has a significant negative effect on our Territorial Formula Financing Agreement. So in order to do that, we have to make sure we have a strong economy with jobs, and we have to work with all the groups and communities on things like affordable housing and the services that will attract people into the North. So those are the areas of improving our economy that we’re looking at that will very directly impact the bottom line of the Northwest Territories and all Northerners. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment did a Minister’s statement on advanced education initiatives, but really, is this really advanced? Do we continue to put residents through the education system only at the end to have to put more money to get them back to a standard of education even to get them ready for post-secondary job education?

This government has the opportunity to invest in the future of a new generation of healthy, educated adults and teenagers. What I’m referring to is the Early Childhood Development Framework, and I made a statement here in the House not too long ago about past reports and reports getting shelved with no action.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment in regard to the Early Childhood Development Framework, I believe there was a 2001 Early Childhood Development Framework and Action Plan and I do understand that there’s joint work between the Department of Health and Education. I want to know what is the update on this framework, and when can we expect to see a final draft of that framework brought to this Assembly for implementation and action. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I agree with the Member that we need to educate our people across the Northwest Territories to the best of our ability as the Government of the Northwest Territories Department of Education and that’s what we’re doing. Also, we’re heavily focused on the early childhood development. As the Member indicated earlier, there was a 2001 Early Childhood Development Framework that we’ve embarked on to have a renewal.

We are quite unique compared with other jurisdictions where we want to join forces with the Department of Health and Social Services. My colleague Minister Beaulieu and I had discussed the next step, what can we do to renew? We need to reach out to the communities and regions, the whole Northwest Territories, to hear their perspectives. That’s what we’ll be embarking on.

Starting next month there will be engagement with the communities, the experts, and also the end of January is going to be when we will be having those experts from early childhood to hear their input, the program managers and so forth. From there we want to table a document in the House during the February session. That’s the overall plan

to have our engagement by the two departments throughout the Northwest Territories prior to that. We will be keeping the Members informed of our progress.

In regard to the 2001 Early Childhood Development Framework Strategy and Plan, I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what the current validity is on the work that was done in that plan and what was successful about that plan. Have any of those action items actually been implemented within the last few governments, I guess? The 2001 plan.

The 2001 Early Childhood Development Strategic Plan has been implemented since then. There have been various initiatives in play. We have Dr. Corriveau leading the administrative discussions with various partners in the Northwest Territories. Some of those initiatives are ongoing since 2001. As you know, this is a long-term initiative. Some have been accomplished successfully. We want to hear from the experts themselves what they want us to focus on. There have been some programs in place that may not have worked in the past. How can we improve in those areas and so forth?

I can provide a detailed list of the things that we have accomplished over the years, since 2001 until today, that have been very successful. I will be providing those to the Members.

Early childhood development is a priority of this 17th Legislative Assembly or I

wouldn’t be bringing it here on the floor as something that we bring up every time we come into the House and ask questions of the Minister.

What are the current action items that the Minister is currently doing or having implemented in the Northwest Territories, especially in the small communities that are having an impact on early childhood development and the investment in our youth, and not just waiting for this plan to implement and do these actions?

When we talk about early childhood development, there are all kinds of programs within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We are also working closely with the Department of Health and Social Services because they do have a framework of programs that deals with zero to three years of age and so forth. Within our Education department, we deal, also, with the college to deliver the certification programs and others, the immersion programs that we have initiated in several of the communities. Those are just some of the examples that have been very successful to date. We will continue to push that forward. I can provide some of the initiatives that we are embarking on. In the February session there will be more opportunity to discuss as we start implementing that programming.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In terms of living in the Northwest Territories, we have a high cost of living, we have a high turnover rate in the communities. In Inuvik, for example, some of the programs have been defaulted or delayed due to the fact that sometimes we don’t have any qualified staff in those positions, as well as having up-to-standard building codes. That was specifically mentioned in the Auditor General’s report. There are a lot of challenges.

What is the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment doing to address these challenges so that we can continue to deliver those early childhood programs and services to people in the Northwest Territories?

The Auditor General’s report and the recommendations brought forward deal with various initiatives that we need to start working on, start implementing, and we have done so. We’re going to follow through with each and every recommendation, such as the daycare inspections, the report, the scheduling and so forth. Those are just some of the areas that we will be embarking on as we move forward.

The high cost of living is a challenge in the communities. Within our Education, Culture and Employment there are programs that support, whether it be the start-up costs of a child care facility or partial mortgage payments and operation costs. We will continue to invest heavily in that area as we have done in the past.

The 2013 February session is when we are going to gather the information. We’re doing our research at this point. Having the two departments working together, I believe we are, again, making history across Canada that we are hoping others will follow as well.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The 17th Assembly’s vision is to work towards individual well-being and empower communities. With that in mind, my question today is for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Why has the department chosen to truck water to Enterprise and Kakisa?

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been the goal of the Legislative Assembly in the past to empower the communities.

It’s one of the reasons the New Deal for community governments was brought about in 2004, and that enables the communities to make decisions affecting their communities a lot better than we can. One of the decisions that they could make is on the provision and distribution of water supply services.

What are the nearest potential sources of drinking water for these communities, in particular Enterprise and Kakisa in terms of looking at potentially establishing their own services for their residents.

We work closely with the communities to identify potential water sources as parts of the funding that they receive, especially under the Gas Tax Agreement. They do have the ability under that program, and I know Kakisa gets probably about $160,000 for that program. That is for water treatment and distribution. They can utilize that money. As well, they get over $600,000 in community infrastructure money that they receive every year. They’re able to utilize that money to help with building a new water treatment plant. There have been some cases in the past where communities have worked together and done bundled water treatment plants. Economies of scale bring the price down a bit. The communities have that ability now to determine if that’s the direction they want to go. As MACA, we will work very closely with the community in coming up with some solutions for them.

Has the department, at this point, considered trying to move these potential projects for the communities forward? Looking at perhaps entertaining the idea of planning to work with the communities and perhaps the Minister could highlight some of the problems in that area. Have there been talks with both Enterprise and Kakisa?

The communities usually identify a 20-year capital plan and we work closely with them on that. If the communities of Kakisa and Enterprise are exploring the idea of building a water treatment plant, then we would be more than willing to work closely with them. We usually wait for an invitation from the community saying they want to look at these issues, and we would go in there at their request and work with them to come up with a solution that is best for all, including possible financing options. We’ve had some communities use their infrastructure money to access loans from the bank and that enables them to get their projects on the ground, because they do know that they are going to be getting a fair sized chunk of infrastructure money every year and they can use that to secure bank loans.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s very encouraging that the Minister has indicated that there is a willingness to work with the communities.

My question is: What are the possible barriers to both Enterprise and Kakisa operating local water treatment plants?