Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The way I read the amendment to the amendment, would basically allow those larger communities that have the trained people to have junior kindergarten right away, and those communities that don’t have the benefit of meeting the terms of this motion would get delayed or postponed until, in fact, they have those trained people there. The way I am understanding this would disadvantage, once again, the very communities that we’re targeting to start first, which would be the small communities. So, to me it is very problematic and we wouldn’t support the amendment to the amendment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Any more questions to the amendment to the amendment? Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I just need to try and suggest that we are starting with small communities. This program is intended to start in September of 2014 in 29 small communities, so I don’t know where the Minister is bringing forward the red herring of the large communities.

There’s no point in starting a program if we don’t have qualified staff. I know that the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment recognizes that we need qualified staff, but this motion is intending to make sure that a program does not go forward in any particular community if they don’t have the qualified staff. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. More comments to the amendment to the amendment? Mr. Menicoche.

Just one more quick thing. I know that Mr. Bromley’s intentions about getting qualified early childhood education workers is well intended, but at the same time it is a need in the small communities, and once again, the wording is just so bad it’s restrictive to the small communities in getting them started. I cannot support the amendment to the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the amendment to the amendment. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Along the same lines as Mr. Menicoche’s comments, in a small community there may be a teacher who is not working who does not have early childhood education credentials, but could potentially work in the Junior Kindergarten Program. I think it is restrictive to say that they must have those credentials. There could be other people who have… Working on a program on-line I know is available through the college. I think it is restrictive and I think it does create the possibility, as Mr. Miltenberger says, of being a detriment to those small communities who have the same struggles for other types of professionals as well. I think that we have to look a little bit beyond the very specific line that this amendment to the amendment takes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the amendment to the amendment. Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, I concur with Mrs. Groenewegen and Mr. Menicoche to this amendment to the amendment. We do have qualified teachers, they are called mothers, grandmothers. They may not have their qualifications as an institution, but they are special people in our communities.

These are four-year-olds. Think back on your child or grandchild as a four-year-old. This is about teaching some social development skills, language, play, respect and values. So these are small children that some of the qualified people that are not recognized in our education system may be recognized in our communities in how to look after little ones, get them ready, so they are special people in our communities. I believe that this is going to shut the door on them and restrict them in saying that we can only have qualified early childhood educators. They are already qualified. If they are qualified to have a little one, they certainly know how to raise them, so we have got to be very careful and keep the door open for our small communities with the Aboriginal teaching of our parents and our grandparents. They may not fit the “academic” type of qualifications but they fit many other different qualifications. We have got to remember that. We have got to honour the culture and the traditions of these communities that we represent.

These are two different views and I think that this view here will say that in the small communities we have to have qualified people in there, so it’s very tricky. This is embarking on a new type of educating and looking after our little ones, so I would have to not support this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the amendment to the amendment to the motion. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Junior kindergarten in the small communities is very important. Looking at all the discussions back and forth and starting with the small communities, I know we’ve had discussions and presentation dialogues in briefings before and we talk about the children that are being developmentally delayed that are entering the school system right now and any type of program that this government can offer, whether it is junior kindergarten or even early childhood development programs. But going with the Junior Kindergarten Program, the plan for the next three years, starting with the small communities, I am in big support of that, based on the fact that we see these high statistics of students entering the school system with such developmentally delayed issues and concerns and also looking at the early framework. The gist of the whole motion itself, the early framework that developed in BC in the occupational competencies that come along with that, I think that also needs to be developed in order to start focussing on some of the really early childhood things that we do.

To the amendment to the amendment, I can’t support it because it looks like it will be restricting getting these programs started, when in fact, right now I don’t think that our government can even certify early childhood workers right now to have that capacity.

For that, I would like to see the Junior Kindergarten Program started up in the new school year and start getting our kids ready for the school system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the amendment to the amendment.

Question has been called. The amendment to the amendment is defeated.

---Defeated

To the amendment. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much. I stand by the original amended motion, Mr. Speaker, just to delete before the program is implemented. Only, once again, it is too restrictive to small communities and their needs and their desire to move forward junior kindergarten. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the amendment.

Question has been called. Motion is carried. The amendment is carried.

---Carried

To the motion. Mrs. Groenewegen.

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.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. With that, we’re going to have to take another break to get our Clerk’s office to deal with it. We’ll take another break.

---SHORT RECESS

Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the amendment, Mr. Menicoche. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe in deleting this, we have not failed to speak of the wages because further down in the motion it says that early childhood education workers be recognized as education professionals and paid wages accordingly. I think that covers the issue of the pay. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.