Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There has been a lot of conversation about medical travel in the House over the last couple of months. We do support some individuals having escorts with them who can help them with all those types of things that the Member is bringing up.

If a resident of the Northwest Territories travels to Edmonton, we also have some professionals located in Edmonton, nurses who could provide some guidance and support to individuals and help them understand how to navigate. Those individuals are available to our residents if they need them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On that note, we also have some northern residents who live in Edmonton who provide help and assistance for northern people who go down there. I just want to thank them and take a moment for that.

Should a client, specifically seniors who might be frail, who might need assistance and in some cases don’t have a medical escort, goes down to these boarding homes and should they have a slip or fall in the bathroom, does the Minister’s office get updated on any kind of serious issues or incidents that happen to clients in these boarding homes? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We do have a contract with the facilities in locations like Edmonton who are providing housing and support to our residents who are down in Edmonton for medical appointments and/or treatment. These individuals

help get people to and from appointments and whatnot.

If there’s an incident within the facility, they are bound under the contract to update the department. I don’t have a direct link and conversation with those organizations, but I can be updated by the department as necessary. For the most part, the department will deal with it directly as an administrative or contractual issue.

The reason I asked the last question is I had a couple of constituents who did make a trip to one of our boarding homes that we offer services to and they both ended up falling and getting hurt in the same room. They ended up having to stay longer than they had to. In one case, the individual couldn’t even go to his initial appointments and had to get care and treatment for a more serious issue that occurred in the boarding home. Then subsequently, I had another individual, same facility and had the same issue brought forth where they ended up having to stay and medical travel had only paid so much for them to stay in a hotel when they didn’t have room at the boarding home. Then family members had to pay their own way down to help and assist. That’s why I’m asking the Minister if he does get updates. I feel that in certain cases like this, when an individual goes down to a certain appointment and winds up getting hurt in a boarding home, that there be immediate contact to the Minister’s office.

Can the Minister develop some protocol or policy to ensure that should something like that happen where there’s a serious incident, that his office gets contacted immediately? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am aware of the situations as the MLA has brought them to my attention. I have directed the department to work with the boarding home to put in mechanisms, so that we, as a system, can be aware of these issues that our residents are having.

The safety of our residents is paramount. We want to make sure that they are safe and that they have access to the services and are not missing the services due to injuries that may have happened in the boarding home. I have already asked the department to work with the boarding home to put in mechanisms so that we can be informed and recommend changes to ensure the safety of our residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know how long it takes to get policies changed in this government or even other governments. Maybe the best answer is to go to the clients themselves and develop some type of survey or follow-up questionnaire for anyone that goes on any type of medical appointment travel where they have to stay

in a boarding home. Then we can get clear, concise information from the client that can tell us how their stay was and their visit was.

Would the Minister be willing and commit to developing some type of follow-up questionnaire for clients who go to these boarding homes outside the Northwest Territories and ones that we provide here in the Northwest Territories as well? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Having the data would obviously help us make better decisions with respect to the safety and well-being of our residents when they are in southern facilities. I don’t know the cost of a survey like this, but it’s certainly a good idea and I will talk to the department to check the feasibility of doing something like that, recognizing that we are a little tight on finances right now but I like the idea of having the information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment following up on my Member’s statement. The Aboriginal Head Start program has been providing effective early childhood education in the Northwest Territories for the past 17 years. This program has been evaluated both locally and by the federal government and has been found outstanding.

Will the Minister agree that the northern experts in early childhood development education at the Aboriginal Head Start program have much to offer in the sphere of early childhood education in the Northwest Territories moving forward? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We need to be on top of all the experts in the field of early childhood development. We’ve done our research. We’ve done our engagement with the general public and working with the early childhood educators as well. Through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Forum, we’ve reached out to all regions, the educators, grandparents, parents. So with their input, we talk about early childhood programming in the communities. Based on that, introducing Junior Kindergarten and others was their feedback and we are moving forward on wage subsidy, as well, for early childhood educators. Those are some of the areas we are moving forward with. Mahsi.

I take from that that the Minister does not agree that the northern experts in early

childhood education at the Aboriginal Head Start program have much to offer in the sphere of early childhood education, which I think is a travesty and a mistreatment of our public.

Many professional educators in the Northwest Territories feel that the hybrid curriculum for Junior Kindergarten proposed by ECE is inappropriate for four-year-old children. Aboriginal Head Start experts agree and are opposed to the curriculum as it now stands. This is based on the 17 years of on-the-ground experience.

Why isn’t the Minister listening to northern educators, such as the experienced early childhood education experts at Aboriginal Head Start, concerning their reservations regarding its proposed curriculum?

I didn’t say I didn’t support those individuals who are in the field of early childhood such as the Head Start program. We do appreciate their feedback, the feedback they’ve given us over the years. We, as a department, although it is a federally funded program, we at the GNWT, ECE, work closely with them as well. So providing feedback from them, it was based on that that we developed curriculum. When there’s a survey in the communities and also research concluded that the curriculum created is appropriate for four and five-year-olds in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, this particular curriculum took a lot of research to develop. Of course, we worked with the daycare providers, as well, so that is a continuous work in progress. Mahsi.

The Minister is not listening to the Aboriginal Head Start educators. They have been trying to have their concerns related to the proposed pre-kindergarten curriculum heard by the Minister, who refuses to meet with them and his staff ignore them, but they have been unable to get a meeting with him to express those concerns.

Will the Minister, not his staff, agree to sit down with representatives from the Aboriginal Head Start program – people have been working in this area for 17 years on the ground, developing their expertise and evaluating it just as this government should be doing, but usually fails – to at least hear and discuss their concerns with what they see is a deeply flawed and potentially harmful curriculum?

Mr. Speaker, for the record, on May 14th there was an e-mail from my

office to [email protected]. There was a request for a meeting, as Mr. Bromley alluded to, and I did commit that my department would meet. Unfortunately, at that time I wasn’t available.

I did commit that my department would meet with the organization, of which they did. They provided all kinds of information to us, and we are working with that information that has been provided to us.

Next week I am travelling to the Deh Cho region. My commitment is to meet with Joyce McLeod, who is affiliated with the organization, and we’re going to share the issues that are there. Based on the feedback, obviously it will be part of the process on the Junior Kindergarten. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, their input has been ignored. They’ve put in requests to meet with the Minister – this has been going on for years now, this JK idea – and somehow the Minister has not found time to meet with this group. What does that say?

ECE seems to require bachelor’s degrees in NWT schools and they are now adding Junior Kindergarten where a teaching degree is not the standard. In fact, we’re looking for early childhood education expertise.

Will the Minister’s rule of bachelor degrees only block participation of professionals with a three-year diploma in early childhood education, which is the expertise we’re looking for, in favour of those with a bachelor’s degree who have little early childhood education training? Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to dismiss those individuals who are in the education system at this point. There are some individuals who have 20 or 30 years of experience working with early childhood programs for all these years. I certainly do not want to shut the door on them. They should have the opportunity. That’s the reason why we’re providing all this training over this summer and also in the fall, so they can be prepared to roll out the Junior Kindergarten in 22 of the 29 communities that we’re establishing this fall. In fact, one additional community wanted to deliver that on top of the 22, so we are moving forward. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve had an opportunity to travel around the Northwest Territories and talk to many, many residents. I also attended the TRC hearings in Inuvik, where we had an opportunity to hear many people talk about their experiences in residential school and the trauma that has resulted.

We do have a significant number of people in the Northwest Territories who are suffering from mental health and addictions issues. To that end, we have moved forward with a Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan to help address these issues, to help residents of the Northwest Territories who have been affected by residential school and other issues throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, during my statement I mentioned the Edmonton mayor’s plan to educate city workers about the history and impact of residential schools. The purpose is to deliver service in a more culturally sensitive manner to the city’s Aboriginal population. I think it’s a great idea.

Here at home we have incredible resources available to us: the residential curriculum produced by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. My idea is to use the curriculum in all child and family services training. Child protection workers and the supervisors should know about this history.

Can the Minister commit to examining the feasibility of this idea? Thank you.