Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to thank Mr. Bromley for bringing this motion forward and also the Members for considering it. I would like to say that I support this motion because it makes sense. The issue of affordable daycares in the Northwest Territories has been an issue for some time. There are daycares here in Yellowknife where a mother who is single or married, a mother has to pay $43 a day to put their child in a private daycare centre, if the mother or the parents need to go to work to support their family. A licenced daycare, Mr. Speaker, is between $40 and $41 a day.

In some of our smaller communities, we don’t even have daycare centres. In my community in the Sahtu, we had an employment rate of 44 percent in 2009 in Tulita. Deline had a 42 percent employment rate in 2009. The average income in Deline is $33,000 for a family. Fort Good Hope has a 44 percent employment rate. In Fort Good Hope 27 percent are single parents. In Deline they have 35 percent single parents. In Tulita there are 32 percent single parents, and 42 percent of them working. When I broke it down a little further in the stats from the territorial government, there are more mothers working in the small communities than the fathers. More mothers that are working means that they have children, single parents, they need a place where they can bring their child to. While they’re well trained…like Mr. Bromley said, well-trained staff with a good income and some spaces in the community to support the families, support the young mothers.

I support this concept of doing a feasibility study and report back to us, work with us across here, over here from our own constituencies, and see if a $7 universal, affordable daycare can work in your community. There are a lot of people in the communities who have done a lot of good work to get daycare programs in their communities. They’ve fundraised, they’ve lobbied and they sold cookies. They did whatever they had to do to get the funding, and good for them.

This report is telling us to look at a feasibility study. The results have been proven. They’ve shown that in Quebec and Scandinavian countries that this type of project, this type of initiative does show the benefits and the results of government putting in funding for a public-supported program that is reaping good benefits especially in our small communities where there are lots of single parents. This will help them. If there are high unemployment rates in the communities, mothers who are wanting

to go to school or seeking employment or seeking to go back to school, they have a place where there is a secure place that they can bring their children and they can contribute to the community.

In closing, I want to urge the Members and Cabinet to look at this. I know Mr. Bromley said the Minister has done some work along with Cabinet in regard to helping the mothers and helping the young families who are going to school, who are going to work, and there is some movement into this initiative. This one here tells you to look at the feasibility, look at this concept. It’s been proven in Quebec and Scandinavian countries, that this is something possible, and if we did it, this is what I’d like to focus our priorities on within the next couple of years of this government: To look at where this type of project will help the mothers with affordable daycare in all our communities, and the government can play a big role in the success. And you know? We’ll all be heroes for all the people that we’re going to help in our communities.