Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did not speak to the motion, now that we’re back to the motion.

Mr. Speaker, in the whereas, and it says “and whereas early childhood education workers are professionals that should be paid the same wages as our teachers,” I have an issue with that because I don’t know what the early childhood education requirements are for credentials to teach early childhood education compared to teachers. I am pretty sure that teachers need some kind of a degree. I don’t know how long it takes to get a diploma or certificate in early childhood education.

So, we are now telling all the teachers in the Northwest Territories, who have gone out and got their Bachelor of Education degrees, that we are going to bring in people who have taken a 10-month course and we’re going to say they need to be paid the same as our teachers.

I think we’re getting way into things that we don’t know anything about. I think that there is a union, there’s a teachers’ association. There are ways that jobs are classified. There are ways that job descriptions are written. There is remuneration associated with those jobs and credentials. So we’re getting very specific in this motion suggesting that we should pay early childhood education workers who may not be teachers the same wages as teachers. I can’t support that part of the motion.

To that end, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make an amendment to the motion to delete that particular whereas and I’d like to change it to “whereas early childhood education workers are professionals that should be paid an amount consistent with the industry standard or best practices from other jurisdictions. Thank you.