Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate Member Moses for bringing this motion forward. If this isn’t apparently clear right now, you’ve heard from numerous committee members on their passion on this area of early childhood development. Now, we may not always agree on the actual steps or the age group per se, and we know that the department is working quite well in getting their junior kindergarten up and running, and I do support that initiative. You’ve also heard from many committee members that zero to three or the month five to month nine. I’m sure anyone who does enough research can probably dig up any study that will corroborate anything in that area of childhood development, and I think there are some good ideas out there.
That said, I can just imagine what’s going through Cabinet’s mind right now going, you know, we’re on a fiscally tight budget, we’ve got a lot of initiatives on the agenda. How can we afford another $2 million? What’s going through this committee’s mind that would allow us to even conceive that, given the fiscal restraints that we continuously hear when motions are brought to the floor of the House? That’s a good question. This committee as well as Cabinet as well as the entire Northwest Territories have waited over two years for this early childhood development to come into play. We’ve heard a lot of good things, and I think over the years, this committee and individual Members have
supported the initiatives, waiting feverishly to see these actions and these steps to be put in motion.
I think we just heard from Mr. Moses, this is a fairly daunting action plan where this committee feels that we’re not actually putting enough money to achieve meaningfully, the results that, I think, everyone is hoping to resolve this. This motion basically gives that direction to say, listen, we support this initiative, which I think is a good thing. No one should read negatively into this motion. What we’re saying is we’re supporting what is being done. We’re just saying let’s put a little bit more grease on that axle so that we can achieve what is meaningful to the people of the Northwest Territories.
I can tell you that in this committee structure in this very House, we will spend less time debating on $20 million, $30 million, $40 million, $300 million for new highway construction, and that goes with very little debate, and yet sometimes we’ll sit here and we’ll talk about a $2 million project, a $1 million project when really that’s less than one kilometre of new highway. I always find that mindboggling in this room. What will benefit the future of our territory and we put so much debate into it, and yet other pieces of equipment or infrastructure barely see the light of day and barely get debated. It’s usually just approved, because, yes, infrastructure is the right way to go. I’m not saying that it isn’t. I’m just saying that this is something that will greatly shift.
This motion is setting the course of a paradigm shift in our thinking. It’s saying, listen, let’s put more money where we’re going to get a bigger bang for our dollar. Let’s put more money in something that we’re going to have a tangible benefit for the future of the Northwest Territories, and nothing more.
This is not about a power struggle. This is not about a bunch of Regular Members who don’t understand dollars and cents. Members on this side of the House clearly understand the budget and clearly understand the fiscal restraints that we’re facing. We’re saying let’s put more money where it really counts, and it counts in our people. If it’s not apparently clear what I’m indicating today or what my rationale is for this motion, I will be in support of this motion, and I will actually be calling for a recorded vote.