Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Abernethy, maybe we could commit to provide a better explanation. I’m not sure if you have something else that will help us get to the bottom of this. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m happy to have somebody from Finance help explain this to the Member and anybody else who’s interested. The bottom line is it’s not revenue. If you look on the page 7-26, it shows how the dollars are spent: $7.008 million are for salaries of TSE staff, and the other $11 million is for things like the DCN contracts and services and other contracts and contracts we have to provide services within the Government of the Northwest Territories in all communities, all regions. It’s outlined there how the money is spent, but I’m happy to have somebody from Finance provide maybe a plain language explanation of how this is not revenue.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Hawkins.

That’s the kind of answer I’m looking for. Thank you.

Thank you. Anything further on page 7-26? Information item, Technology Service Centre (Chargeback). We will move on. Page 7-27, information item, Technology Service Centre (Chargeback), active positions.

Seeing no questions, page 7-28, information item, Public Stores Revolving Fund. Seeing no questions, we will move on to page 7-30, information item, Petroleum Products Revolving Fund. Seeing no questions, I will move on to page 7-31, information item, Petroleum Products Revolving Fund, active positions. Page 7-32, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Page 7-33, information item, work performed on behalf of others, continued.

We will return now to page 7-7, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $93.682 million. Is committee agreed?

Does committee agree we have concluded the Department of Public Works and Services?

Thank you, committee. Thank you, Minister. Thank you to your officials. Sergeant-at-Arms, would you please escort the witnesses from the Chamber?

Alright, committee. We will move on. The next department is Education, section 10. I would like to ask the Minister for Education, Culture and Employment, Minister Lafferty, do you have any opening remarks?

Yes, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I am pleased to present the 2012-13 main estimates for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

The work of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is guided by the department’s strategic plan and the priorities of the 17th Assembly. Our vision is one of northern people leading fulfilled lives and contributing to a strong and prosperous society.

The proposed 2012-13 main estimates for Education, Culture and Employment total $289.107 million. This is an increase of 1 percent over the previous year’s main estimates.

Education and Culture

Culture and Heritage

Arts and culture provide Northerners with a foundation for learning and growth and provide us with a strong base on which to build our future. Culture and heritage activities also serve to strengthen and diversify the economy.

In 2012-13 we plan to spend over $6.5 million on culture and heritage programs and services. The budget includes a one-time $520,000 increase to complete repairs to fire damaged sections of the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre.

Official Languages

To speak one’s own language provides a sense of identity and belonging. Language activities assist communities to promote and revitalize their culture and language, and in doing so contribute to the community’s economy and well-being.

The department continues to implement the NWT Aboriginal Languages Plan. In 2011-12 the department organized a successful Aboriginal languages symposium which resulted in the development of the plan, and offered two language institute sessions. The department also worked with language communities on a wide variety of activities. The first phase of our consultation on a French Language Strategic Plan is now complete, and in 2012-13 an additional $150,000 is budgeted to provide for the full year cost of the new administrative structure established in 2011-12 for the delivery of French language services.

In 2012-13 the department plans to spend close to $7.5 million on official language programs and services. The government will be considering options for the establishment of an Aboriginal languages secretariat to deliver a broad range of Aboriginal language and cultural activities in the near future.

Amendments to the Official Languages Act to eliminate the Official Languages Board will be proposed. As well, the South Slavey language will be renamed in accordance with the wishes of the Dehcho First Nation. The department will also work with the Executive to review demands on community-based government service centres in order to match service with demand and will continue to work closely with language communities towards their goals and priorities.

Early Childhood Development

Early childhood development programs help children to grow up healthy and ready to learn, reducing the burden on the health, education and justice systems, and help parents to become or stay employed, increasing economic opportunities for many northern families.

In May 2012, ECE, along with the Department of Health and Social Services, met with early childhood providers and stakeholders to obtain their views on the development of child and family resource centres. The results of this consultation and other research are being used to develop an action plan to support pilot programs in two communities in 2012-13, and to use this experience to expand support for centres in other NWT communities. Data from the recently introduced Early Development Instrument will be available to inform the work as the plan is implemented.

In 2012-13 child care benefits under income assistance will be increased and an Early Childhood Action Plan will be finalized. Planned changes to improve the monitoring and inspection

of child daycare facilities will be completed. In addition, ECE and the Department of Health and Social Services will renew the Early Childhood Development Framework for Action, a directional GNWT document on early childhood development.

In 2012-13 the department plans to spend $7.3 million on early childhood development programs.

School and Library System

Ensuring the success of all students of our kindergarten to Grade 12 education system is the cornerstone of building a strong and sustainable future for our territory.

Education, Culture and Employment, in partnership with education authorities, is taking action to improve student achievement, performance and graduation rates under the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. Current actions include a new mandatory cultural orientation for teachers, the operation of new community libraries, the hiring of regional literacy coordinators to work with classroom teachers, and the consultations and partnership with Aboriginal leaders under the ASA Education Partnership Declaration signed in 2011 and endorsed by AFN National Grand Chief Mr. Shawn Atleo in 2012.

Madam Chair, in 2012-2013 the department will launch a new kindergarten curriculum, work with education authorities on school plans to improve and report on student achievement, and complete a review of the Aboriginal Language and Culture-based Education Directive. PowerSchool, a new K-12 student information system, will be introduced to schools and parents in the fall of 2012.

In addition, work is underway to develop an Aboriginal Student Achievement implementation and communication plan based on the ASA education plan compiled after extensive community consultation. Plans will examine existing programs and outline further actions to address the four ASA priorities, with a focus on early childhood development. Regular communication will continue with Aboriginal and education leadership in the regions.

In 2012-13 this government will spend over $171 million on school and library programs. Close to $153 million of this amount will be contributed to education authorities for the delivery of K to 12 education.

Advanced Education and Careers

Post-secondary training and employment programs help adults in the NWT acquire skills, knowledge and abilities necessary to access social and economic opportunities and to contribute to build a strong future for our territory.

The NWT Labour Force Development Framework: People, Partnerships and Possibilities, will guide the work of the department and its training partners

in 2012-13. The department will partner with stakeholders to assist Aurora College with aspects of the Adult and Basic Education, or ALBE, Strategy funded by the federal government. Recommendations from the ALBE review will be incorporated into this and other work to improve ALBE programs.

In addition, the department will work with regional training committees to improve supports for those in small communities through the Small Communities Employment Support and other government programs and will work on an accountability framework for the education and training for adults. As well, a new web-based apprenticeship system will be completed.

In 2012-13 the department plans to spend over $46 million on the Advanced Education and Employment Program.

Income Security

Income security programs exist to assist people to meet basic needs and achieve greater self-reliance at a time when they are most vulnerable.

In 2012-13 the department will continue to promote client participation in productive choices and to refer clients to regional ECE careers services, with a view to investing in client’s independent futures. The department is also participating in developing the GNWT Anti-Poverty Strategy and working on an action plan in response to the recommendations from the Student Financial Assistance Program review.

In 2012-13 the department plans to spend close to $40 million on income security programs. This includes an $817,000 increase for income assistance payments and a $160,000 increase for the administration of social assistance appeal committees.

Concluding Comments

The job of the department is to support residents in reaching their education, training and employment goals and in making positive choices for themselves and their family. In this way, residents are encouraged to be as self-reliant as possible and to develop a strong identity based on their culture and heritage. Determining the levels of support that help Northerners meet their needs is a challenge that requires constant review.

Based on this Assembly’s vision and goals, we believe we are making the best investments, for the most people, within our fiscal reality.

I would be pleased to answer any questions that Members may have at this time. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Do you have any witnesses you wish to bring into the Chamber? Minister Lafferty.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Is committee agreed to witnesses coming into the House?

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, would you please escort the witnesses in?

Minister Lafferty, would you please introduce your witnesses for the record?

Mahsi, Madam Chair. To my left is Gloria Iatridis, acting deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment; and Mr. Paul Devitt, director of strategic business services. Mahsi.

Thank you. Committee, I will open the floor to general comments on the Department of Education. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Minister and staff for coming before us.

Madam Chair, the points that I want to make are the pace at which we’re educating our children in our small communities. Our communities have a high number of young people and I was in somewhat of shock and dismay when the Alberta test results came out and they showed the education. It gave me a snapshot picture of the education in our smaller communities and in our education system, the department. We are funding our schools, yet we are not as up to par as we think we are.

In our schools I think there’s got to be a definite move from how we do business. We have talked about this issue of social passing for a long, long time. This indicates that it’s definitely not our way of doing business. We’ve got to have something more that tells these students what grade they’re in, that’s the exact grade they’re in. We have a student who’s in Grade 4 or Grade 6 that testing tells us they are at least two grades behind. That, to me, is totally unacceptable within our education system. If something radically needs to happen, then we need to make it happen.

I hope the Minister with his new initiatives that he talked about, that we’re going to see that change. I am not sure if it’s going to take two years or three years. That’s not going to do anything for our students who are graduating this year; they’re in Grade 12. Everybody is planning a graduation ceremony. How many students are going to make it through a post-secondary entrance or how many are going to go back to Aurora College and say I have to upgrade? Is there any tracking within the high school system that says in the Sahtu of the last five years, for example, X-amount of students graduated? How many are in post-secondary

institutions? How many are living in communities? How many are working? There are a few exceptional students, despite termination of encouragement from families, who make it on their own. Some of these students even go into upgrading for a year. They go to Edmonton. My nephew went to Hay River to upgrade, working as a student, but upgrading in Hay River. There’s a few of them that make it because they really want to.

We’ve been hearing this for the last four or five years. I’m looking forward to the Minister’s initiatives that we all talked about in closing the gap between our small communities and the larger centres such as Yellowknife and Hay River. The gap is too wide and that’s unacceptable. If you want to see the quality of education, look at our education system in Yellowknife, Hay River, Inuvik and our smaller communities. There is no equality. Look at the grades that they’re testing at. There is no equality. So to say that all students are going to get equal programs, equality in our schools, it’s not there and we’re not doing any justice to the parents or the communities.

So that social program initiative has to go. We have to do something else to replace it. If it’s going to cost money, then that’s what we have to do. Why suffer because it’s going to cost us X amount of millions? Our students are going to be suffering. So that’s a big one on my plate for education.

I like what the Minister did. He went around the region, he talked to the people and he heard in the last Assembly on the initiative of the Aboriginal Achievement and he’s moving that forward, and he started to do some work on the early childhood, and that’s a good thing.

I wanted to talk about the Adult Education Program that we have with Aurora College. I know the federal government has given Aurora College a lot of money under the Literacy Program. I look forward to seeing some future plans as to how these dollars will be rolling out into the communities to improve the literacy of the parents, the people, the kids through Aurora College’s plans.

Madam Chair, when we saw the impacts of development in our region, the Sahtu, the income support recipients going down because of the oil and gas company – Husky Energy came in and did some work in that area – and the level of income support recipients has gone down quite a lot in dollars. So it tells you that if you have income, income support from the oil companies and mining companies and people want to work. We need to help them get away from their dependency on government. Not only the short term and after awhile we need their work, because the season slows, they get back. I wouldn’t mind seeing some results as to the Sahtu prior to the oil companies coming in and after the oil companies come in. I’d like to see that graphed. I’m going to ask for that.

I want to show that we want to work in the Sahtu, but it’s very hard sometimes to break from that dependency. We’ve got them to a point where they expect that it’s almost like their right. You’re going to feed me; you’re going to house me; you’re going to clothe me. We’ve got them to a point where their thinking is very lazy. That’s too bad. Even the little kids now in our schools go to government with their hand out. We’ve done some things that don’t help our people. I want to ask this Minister some of these questions later on.

Overall, he’s got a big department. I haven’t even talked about culture. However, I just wanted to say that he’s got a big budget and some big issues, but more importantly is education. I have a personal stake in this. My little boy is in Grade 5 in Tulita and it’s not the same as a Grade 5 here in Yellowknife. That really ticks me off and I need to know that we need to make some changes. So I’m just showing a little bit of my frustration and my compassion for it. I’ll have more questions later on.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. We have agreed earlier, committee, that we will do responses from the Minister after we’re done with general comments. So I’ll move on to the next person on the list, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m happy to have this opportunity to offer some general comments in response to the Minister’s opening remarks. I want to start by saying the budget is very tight here for this department and a 1 percent increase, this is a major priority for myself and my colleagues. That is a pretty modest increase compared to the demands that we have.

I also agree with the Minister’s remarks on the arts and culture and heritage, and fully recognize the importance of those to both our identity and strengthening our people and also to diversifying and supporting our economy. Those need to be recognized when we’re allocating funds.

I’m glad to see we’re going to recover the fire damage on the culture and heritage centre, and I want to note that the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre is a top-class facility in any forum anywhere in the world and they just celebrated their one millionth visitor. I’d be very curious to know what proportion of visitors to the capital visit our heritage centre. Perhaps the Minister knows that, I don’t know, but this is a major tourism draw and needs to be recognized on that front as well.

The official languages, again I see, you know, a massive review was done by committee and recommendations made. The budget has stayed the same and yet some of our languages are not doing well. So there’s clearly some focus required there.

Probably my most important comment is in the area of early childhood development, which I’ve spoken

on before, but I take exception to the Minister’s statement that ensuring the success of all students of our kindergarten to Grade 12 education system is a cornerstone of building a strong and sustainable future for our territory. I think that statement reflects a lack of realization and basically a struggle to retain control in the department, really, by the schools. The biggest cornerstone we have is early childhood development and the biggest part of that is the first three years of life and the gestation period during the prenatal stage. That is an area that is really the purview of Health and Social Services and needs to be recognized, and I think is being recognized by this department. They need to be the lead in that area, although ECE is the overall lead in developing early childhood development, but this needs to be sorted out and it needs to be clear.

I’m extremely disappointed that we’re stuck at $7.3 million, which is no change in funding for early childhood, and in fact it’s a decrease if anything. So extremely disappointed and I think we’re missing the boat here and I will be asking questions on that further.

I’m glad to see that an Early Childhood Action Plan will be finalized. I can only hope that Health and Social Services have had a strong input into that, especially for the zero to three where they would be the lead in designing programs.

We don’t need a renewed Early Childhood Development Framework for Action; we need a revised Early Childhood Development Framework for Action. I’m hoping that is what the Minister means with that statement. As I say, those are the most critical parts that I see for this department.

I didn’t hear the Minister talk about training. Again, especially for the early years, we know that our training is producing substandard early childhood workers. We know that Aurora College is producing graduates that don’t meet the national standards. These are the people we’re putting in charge of the most critical years of our children’s and citizens’ lives. I want to hear from this Minister that that program is being tuned up and improved to meet national standards, as committee has talked about for years now.

Again, what’s contained in the Minister’s remarks shows in this area again a school’s perspective, the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, with a focus on early childhood development. Those programs are already in place and ongoing. They can always benefit from extra support, but again it’s a school’s perspective and it fails to show the recognition of what is now widely understood, that we need a health and social services focus brought into the early years of early childhood development as the priority. That is where we have not been delivering.

I’ll leave it at that. I’m glad to see the other remarks that the Minister made. He mentioned that actions or recommendations from the Student Financial Assistance Program review, I still haven’t seen that. I have again been waiting for that. It seems strange to be talking about acting on that. If there is such a report I’ll look forward to seeing it. Happy to see the Social Assistance Appeals Committee being put in place.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Are there any other Members wishing to make opening comments? Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. [English translation not provided.]

Madam Chair, I’m opening up my comments obviously in my maternal French language, which is a right that we have, as well as many other jurisdictions in Canada. I think that brings to my question that even in the Legislative Assembly we have opportunities to help promote our language. We do not have any translators behind me to do the proper translations in French. I guess that goes without saying that we have opportunities in general with all languages, all our languages that are recognized here in the Territories, and again we know the challenges.

With respect to the Minister’s opening remarks or comments as we go into the budget, obviously this is the second largest budget of our government. I’m pleased to see some direction. I’m pleased to see some direct opportunities in terms of early childhood development, as I mentioned earlier, and also advances especially in the career area.

What I didn’t see in here, and this is probably more a functionality of some of the work that we’ve been doing in the past number of months, work we’ve done with the Auditor General of Canada, work we’ve done in terms of opportunities not only for the Department of Education but for many other departments. The Auditor General of Canada was very specific in nature in providing this government with a lot of guidelines and recommendations in terms of where this department can move forward to better themselves and be a better department for not only themselves but for the people of the Northwest Territories. In the recommendations of the Auditor General is the deployment of measurables, key indicators, dashboard indicators, if you will, in terms of the performance of the department. Given the fact that this was a very extensive process that the Regular Members did do with the Minister, I was a bit, I guess, shocked that that wasn’t part of the new mandate of the department. Trying to prove that the programs that are coming on board over the next couple of years during the life of this Assembly are going to be able to be broadcast in a way that are measured, that the Members here have an opportunity to comment, and at the end of the day that hopefully we have a

product, deliverable, for the people of the Northwest Territories.

One of the only things I can comment on, obviously, which is not in here in a general sense, is our achievement tests that our students do write annually, and of course the results that we got of those tests back on February 28th obviously raise a

lot of concerns and questions. I’m not going to speak on behalf of the small communities, it was already brought up by Mr. Yakeleya, but other MLAs that wish to from the communities that are rural are more than happy to jump in. My comments will be more so around the issues of Yellowknife because this is where my constituents reside. Keeping that in mind, Mr. Minister, and I know he’s aware that I have children in the system as well, so I’m speaking as a parent as well who’s got two kids in the system. So this is also very close to my heart. As Mr. Yakeleya said, when you have kids in the system you’re a lot more in tune with what’s going on.

The results that we got back on February 28th regarding the Alberta Achievement Tests written by our Grade 3, Grade 6, and Grade 9 students are somewhat puzzling and somewhat troublesome. Albeit that the results from Yellowknife were somewhat higher than the rest of the region, there are still areas of concern. As Mr. Yakeleya has mentioned earlier, there is a gap. There’s even a gap between Yellowknife and Alberta in general, and I think that gap needs to be a high target for this government and this department to find ways to rectify that. When your Grade 9 math results come in at 53 percent where Alberta averages at 73.9 percent, that’s a gap. That means that our Grade 9 math are nowhere near capable of handling the rigours of what’s before them in terms of opportunities and we are narrowing the scope of opportunity of these students as they progress in their final years of secondary and hopefully moving on to post-secondary.

Be that as it may, the other interesting statistic that jumped off is obviously a lot of the percentage of students that are excused is very troublesome. The whole aspect of social passing and promoting a functional grade level equivalent, in my mind, really is not serving the needs of our public. We’re becoming complacent as a society, one in which I would like to see rectified as we move forward over the life of the 17th Assembly. When close to 20

percent of your students are not writing the exam and are being excused because of a social passing, that number is far too large considering the fact that Alberta is only at around 5 percent. We’re four times higher than Alberta. These are alarming statistics that put us and our students really at a disadvantage if we really truly want to see them succeed in careers. Even if it’s going to Aurora College, even if it’s going to tech schools, we’re not doing our students any justice.

My opening comments are more so not what we’ve seen today, which I think are some good stuff in terms of what’s coming down the pipe for the department, but what’s missing is those measureables and how we communicate those measureables not only to the people of the House but to the people of the Northwest Territories, so as parents, as teachers, as administration, we have indicators of how well our kids are doing and not waiting until the Grade 3, Grade 6, Grade 9, and using only our one tool, as far as I’m concerned, as our achievement tests. I’m hoping that the department and department officials are listening. I’m hoping that the Minister is paying attention. These are recommendations, not just a Member sitting here talking about what he thinks is important. These are instruments. These are tools. These are standards that the Auditor General of Canada has asked of this government not only in education but in other departments.

I’d like to thank you for your time, for the delegation. I’m looking forward to diving into the details of the budget. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Next on the list is Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just some comments that I want to address with this particular department. I appreciate all the engagement that we’ve had with this department and their staff over the last few months. I think we really noticed that we needed to put some strong effort into working together and moving forward for this government stemming back from where our Standing Committee on Social Programs strategic planning in Hay River where we really got to look through the department and go into detail and see how things are working over the past few years.

Speaking to some of my colleagues here, we did get some recommendations out of the program review office that at some time we’d like to see addressed within the business plans. If not this one, we do have one coming up in the fall that would make spending our dollars a little bit more efficient, a little bit wiser, and using those dollars into programs where we can see fit. We’ve discussed that at the table with P and P as well as looking at the recommendations from the Office of the Auditor General. I really believe that those recommendations should be addressed and looked at as we move through the business plans.

Like my colleague here Mr. Bromley when we looked at the opening remarks and saw that there was only a 1 percent increase over the previous year’s main estimates, I took that as a concern because throughout this government I know the Minister has brought forth and done some Minister’s statements and press releases on the Aboriginal Student Achievement, language revitalization, elders in the schools. With a 1

percent increase it’s very hard for me to see that these new programs are going to have the support that they need to flourish while we’re still continuing to work on the other areas of our education system that a lot of my colleagues have addressed today.

In particular, the Aboriginal Student Achievement, just to bring it to the attention of the Members here, we had some really good coordinators in Inuvik that were lacking some support in getting what they thought was going to be some good ideas and some good working groups and working with the community to develop this plan, but they didn’t have the support and they both resigned their positions and all the hard work that they put into this so far has kind of gone to the wayside. Now we’re hoping that somebody in the community picks that up. I know that’s a big project that we’ve got going throughout the Northwest Territories. It concerns me that in Inuvik, where we have a lot of resources and a lot of community-based members, which these two members were community based, it makes me wonder how other communities are going to be impacted with the workload of creating this without any kind of financial support or other resources for them to work with.

The Minister did mention that there was, I think, $46 million here for advanced education and employment program. I’d like more information on that to see how we can – that’s a lot of money – better spend those dollars as we move forward in this business plan and it’s not just throwing money at another program here.

Like all my other colleagues have stated, you know, a 52 percent graduation rate is not successful. The way I’ve been putting it when I talk to people back home, I said, you know, you go into Grade 1 and you look at the class and you say, you know, from this point on half this class is going to graduate and the other half, what happens to them? They fall through the cracks. That’s where the emphasis is put on this early childhood development. We have to reach our youth at a very young age, right from birth to three where they’re most critical at learning and taking in all these cognitive, intellectual skills that will prepare them for when they get into the school system.

That said, we also need more child care providers, more licensed establishments. It’s very important. Right now in the Northwest Territories we are lacking those services. The more we lack those services the less opportunity that our youth get a chance to be part of such a growing aspect of our lives. That’s just the importance of our early childhood development.

One thing I wanted to note was the ALCIP, the Aboriginal Language and Cultural Instructor Program. In correspondence previous, it had mentioned that there were no graduates out of that program for the previous two years, and I know we

just went through a graduation session in our communities. I think in Inuvik we actually had some graduates. I don’t know the numbers, but that was very positive to see that that program was finally successful in graduating some of the students that took that program.

I’m also very happy to see that in the work business plans and as we go through them that some legislation on the anti-bullying is going to be brought forth. The sooner we can get acting on that, the safer it will be for our students who are going to school in the fall time.

One other concern was our income support and the Productive Choices Program that the department has addressed. We find that it would be nice to get stats and updates on the Productive Choices Program to see how efficiently it’s working and the impact that it’s having on students that are going to school or on our mental health system, our counselling services as well.

There are a lot of concerns here and I know that as we deliberate over the next couple of days, we’ll work those out and that we can take lessons from this first business plan, as it’s my first business plan session, and we can bring recommendations and look at all the stats and all the facts and all the information that we’ve had since the beginning of this government.

It is a big budget and I respect that and I respect a lot of the projects and the programs that the department has to do within that department. I know it’s not easy, but you’ve got a lot of good, skilled, educated people here to help you out and assist you, as well, and we’re willing to do that.

Those are just my opening comments, Mr. Chair, and I thank you.