Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am in support of this motion. I think my comments yesterday indicated that I believe very strongly that we need to put more effort, more consideration, more design into our early childhood development budget. The department is set on implementing junior kindergarten, and that’s fine. It’s a good program. I don’t have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that we are not putting the same focus on our zero to three children, and we need to put more money into that area. Other Members have spoken to the benefit that we get from focusing on zero to three, so I don’t need to repeat that, but simply to say that I strongly support the positions that they’ve put forward.
I think Mr. Bromley mentioned that the Social Programs committee has discussed this issue many times, and it is not just within the last six months that we’ve been discussing it. This has been discussed since I have come here. It’s not an either or. It shouldn’t be programming for four-year-olds or programming for zero to three, and that’s what this motion is trying to convey. It is an issue we’ve been trying to convey for quite some time. We should be doing programs and we should be enhancing programs in both areas, and
unfortunately, the department has decided that junior kindergarten is early childhood development, and so four-year-olds are going to get the benefit but we’re not going to put the money that is required and that is necessary into zero to three, and that is extremely unfortunate. As Mr. Bromley said, I hope that the department hears us this time around and does take our direction.