Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to commend the government and their work towards this ’14-15 budget and the budget address that was given to us earlier today. Obviously, we do have some challenges in the Northwest Territories that we have seen since the beginning of this government.
Looking at the budget address and listening very closely to what was in there and what wasn’t in there, where we need to put some focus, one area that kind of caught my attention is one area where the Minister did mention that we must do things differently in our ability to fund programs and services that are critical to Northerners, but that’s a statement based on the declining population that’s been mentioned here that reduces our economic growth in the Northwest Territories.
In the budget address, one thing I was really looking forward to – speaking of doing things differently – was some information, some commitments to education. One statement that was in here was over one-third of our children are not healthy or developmentally ready to go into the school system. That’s an issue, because in the future that means that’s going to affect one of our goals, which is healthy, educated people for the Northwest Territories, a goal of the 17th Legislative
Assembly. Those are, on average, the stats for the Northwest Territories. Those stats get higher as you get into the smaller communities.
One initiative that can address those is the e-learning that has been brought up in this House many times. One thing that was not brought up in the budget address that is of concern to me are any funds or commitments made to all the hard work and effort that staff, organizations, committee and the department has gone for the Education Renewal Initiative. So, where is all the funding that’s going to go into this should this document be prepared for the ’14-15 education school year?
We have to do things differently. The Beaufort-Delta has done a great job in getting higher education and higher learning into the small communities in the Beaufort-Delta region, yet I didn’t see any commitment or funding for that program in here.
There was a really good news article in the Inuvik Drum today that talked about the Sunchild E-Learning Initiative that provided higher education and got older adults educated and graduated. I was a little disappointed not seeing that in the budget, and hopefully in the future we can see something coming down the pipes, maybe through a supplementary appropriation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.