I inquired of the Minister of Education a short while ago whether or not his department will make any adjustments to the funding formula for daycares as a result of the implementation of junior kindergarten. The response from his office indicated no funding changes are coming. According to reports in the news media, the Minister has said that daycares

will be provided with infrastructure money to change four-year-old spaces to spaces for babies or toddlers, but money for cribs and blankets doesn’t address the problem of bigger wage costs.

Until we have publicly funded early childhood care/early childhood education, the GNWT must increase the funding assistance for licenced daycares or we will lose some of our present services. I urge the Minister of Education to reconsider his $780 infrastructure funding announcement and provide more operational funding for licenced daycares to ensure we keep the daycare spaces we now have.

I will have some questions to the Minister of Education at the appropriate time.