I believe the Member is referring to our capital budget. We spend $1.6 billion on programs, so we are spending a lot of money in all of those areas the Member identifies. Thank you.

My final question relates to the results of the Early Development Instrument, or EDI. I mentioned the EDI results because they’re a decisive measure of whether our people are healthy, educated and free from poverty. Mr. Speaker, on indicators of things like communication skills and physical well-being, our smallest communities are challenged. They are miles behind their peers in other parts of Canada.

How does the Premier balance his unbalanced focus on infrastructure when our children are so ill-prepared to face the world? What is the Premier doing to ensure people in small communities are healthy, educated and free from poverty? Mahsi.

As a government, we just rolled out a number of policies. We came out with an Anti-Poverty Strategy where we provided $500,000 to address this. We are spending money on housing. We’re going to spend $21 million on housing over the next three years, and we continue to provide support in all of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the detail the Member is requesting on what is going into each region. I do have figures on what the government is spending on the Economic Opportunities Strategy this year. It is just about $2.5 million. Last year it was $1.5 million. But for the detail, I can get that to the Member. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it’s my understanding that we were going to work on about three Economic Strategy plans and it was my understanding that they would be at least in the range of about $50,000 each. I’m doing that off memory, so it may not be the exact number for each plan, but I’m sure it’s a close number bracket.

That said, I’m trying to source out which particular regions this government is going to help focus in on and what type of discussion are we going to have to ensure that we focus in on those regions that need a lot of help and see if we can get their economies bustling so they can work in and get people employed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, each region in the Northwest Territories is going to get the required help and assistance. Of course, we do have that available. We do have regional offices around the Northwest Territories that are ready, willing and able to help communities and help regions develop plans. Our goal is to do just that. Thank you.

I can appreciate from the very first response from the Minister that he’s maybe not able to fully answer the question, so maybe I’ll take a slightly different tact.

Does the Minister agree that regional grassroots input is important so each region can identify what’s critical to them to help spark their individual economy?

The example I gave in my Member’s statement, I’m sure you’ll recall, Mr. Speaker, was I mentioned how maybe in Tulita the fishing industry isn’t quite the same as it is in Hay River, where we need to support Hay River slightly differently because they have a big fishing economy and they do a lot of work there. But on the local level, it’s slightly different in Tulita.

I guess the bottom line I’m getting at here is, how does the Minister envision that we’re going to get grassroots input to ensure that we target things but serve every economy slightly different throughout the Northwest Territories? We can’t expect one mould to work through, roll through and give us the exact same results. If they don’t connect with the regional people with the regional needs, then they’re a waste of time. So I want to hear how we plan to do that or how does the Minister envision that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that was the genesis of the whole Economic Opportunities Strategy, was to get that grassroots look, to build partnerships around the Northwest Territories. We have the Northern Aboriginal Business Association; we have the Chamber of Commerce; we’ve talked to communities; we’ve talked to the public. All of that work went into the development of the Economic Opportunities Strategy, and the

implementation plan you see today reflects all of that good work that we put in the early days of developing the strategy that the Member talks of.

That work was done. That’s why we believe strongly that the Economic Opportunities Strategy that we have and the implementation plan is going to benefit all regions across the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s exactly why I’m asking about the implementation plan, how we get this into the input of those regions into this plan so we actually get developing business, because business is the right people to help create the economy. That’s the detail I’ve been trying to get here today and I look forward to what the Minister is now going to say. Besides the plan, besides the implementation plan, let’s hear the details of how we’re going to get there and get people working. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, whether it’s agriculture... I know the Member is the chair of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure. We’ve had a great deal of success in agriculture. We think we can do a lot more there. So, we’re poised to do some big things in agriculture.

On the tourism side, I just read a statement in the House earlier this week, talking about tourism numbers being up. The fact that we have put more marketing into our efforts in places like China is paying off, and we continue to see our numbers increase there. Also, the investment that we are making in the commercial fishing industry and the partnership that we’re going to build to see a new export-grade fish plant constructed and operated in Hay River are very important things.

Again, we need to continue to support the regions. Not all regions are created equal, obviously. There are opportunities that vary from region to region. But our goal is to diversify the economy, and we believe the plan we’ve put in place will allow us to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier, we do have some attendance rate issues in our communities, especially the small communities. With this Education Renewal and Innovation Framework document, entitled “Direction for Change,” it doesn’t really speak too much on how we’re going to try to get our students into the seats and into the classrooms.

So I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, what is his department doing to increase attendance in schools across the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The whole Education Renewal and Innovation will obviously capture that. The attendance issue has been at the forefront of our discussion through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative in which we’ve engaged with the general public over the years since 2010, and we had a forum on education renewal. The poor attendance, obviously, is a symptom of underlying issues where students are disengaged in our school system.

Examples of our ERI that I can share with the Member, one of the focuses is student well-being through safe and caring school practices and also providing nutritious foods in our school system and enhancing our community relations through elders in schools, residential school resources and staff training, and also providing personalized and quality education through focused inclusive learning supports, career orientation and distance learning. Those are some of the areas we are continuing to focus on. Mahsi.

I understand the well-being of the students as well as the teachers is very important to the department.

One of the things in the document talks about well-being in terms of safety, nutrition and making sure that our students are fed before they go in the classrooms, and that’s another ongoing issue. That in itself can be an incentive for students to go to school first thing in the morning, is a breakfast program.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he has any funding for schools to look at creating breakfast programs in the schools. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, through our contribution to the district education councils and authorities, we provide funding as part of our contribution. It’s at their discretion whether it be spent on a food basket or early learning breakfast in our school system. We, as a department, are working very closely with the school boards to have those students ready to learn in our school system so they’re not coming to school hungry.

Some of the schools have been very creative, having a breakfast program in our school system, and we provide funding towards that as well. Not just my department but there is Health and Social Services and MACA. This is a coordinated approach. We will continue to provide that support to our school system. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I recently had a meeting with Canadian North and talked about some of their programs that they’re running in some of the northern communities specifically around attendance and around best marks. They have really good incentives to get the academic grades that they need but also just making it to school.

Is the Minister familiar with this program that Canadian North runs and is he willing to also partner up with such an organization to look at getting some type of incentive program for student attendance? Thank you.

Mahsi. Obviously, we welcome any organizations, any industries coming to our schools to provide incentives, whether it be focusing on attendance or on-the-land programs. There are all these different partnerships out there that come into our school system and do partner up and contribute towards our programming or students’ well-being. So, we’ll continue to push that forward, seeking out partners, and we’ll do our part as the Department of Education, working again, with the DECs and DEAs as well. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again focusing on attendance, has the Minister worked with the DEAs and the DECs to find a position within the schools for any students, because attendance rates are pretty serious here, 80 percent in the small communities. Is he working with the DEAs to look at creating a position for any students who are continually missing school on a regular basis to find a way to interact or make phone calls to the houses so that those students have that contact with the school and develop that relationship? Is he working with the DEAs to develop something like that? I know they do something similar in Inuvik and I just want to know if he’s working with other communities to implement a similar program. Thank you.