Thank you, Mr. Chair. I seem to have been labeled as anti-iPad and anti-corporate sponsorship. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe because I expressed a concern with the fact that we don’t have a policy to deal with corporate sponsorships.

I am not against corporate sponsorship. I think I need to impress upon people that I am making a distinction between corporate money going to government and corporate money going to a sporting event, for instance.

We are – and I use us all in this room – we are the government. By putting a name on a piece of equipment, we are endorsing that organization, that company, and I don’t think that that is what a public government should be doing.

I do support this project. I think the project is valid. I have concerns, as does Mr. Bromley, about the amount of screen time that our kids are getting into and can get into. I think what concerns me about what we are doing is that we are giving children another opportunity to increase screen time, but as Mr. Menicoche says, it’s within the purview of the parents. If we supply the iPads with information on how much time kids should have in front of a screen, then one weighs off the other and I am fairly comfortable with that.

I don’t know how to say it any more strongly, that providing material to our parents to help them raise their children better is a good thing. I think better is if we can provide the one-on-one and the individual person-to-person information about raising our children better. That’s probably more expensive and probably harder to do. So if this is a choice of two things and this is a second best choice, then I am okay with the iPads, but I do have concerns about the fact that we as a government are accepting corporate money and we don’t have anything to guide us in how we do that. That’s basically what my concerns are. I seem to have been tarred with the brush of we shouldn’t accept any corporate money, and that’s not where I’m coming from.

I appreciate Mr. Bromley’s concerns about the branding. That for me, I guess, is also a problem. We don’t have a policy which says whether we should have a logo that is 500 feet wide or five feet wide, if it’s somewhere. We don’t have a policy which says there should be nothing on the iPads but we give them credit in some document somewhere.

I don’t really know how else to explain it. Because I have concerns about the issue but I do support the

project, I am going to abstain from the motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chair, this motion talks about taking $114,000 from this activity and saying we will buy it ourselves within government. Take it from this pot and we’ll take it from the Right from the Start pot. Because of our philosophical and political issues, we say we don’t want to say to the corporate world thank you but we’ll fund it ourselves, we have enough money. Mahsi, but that’s okay. That’s what it’s saying, because of the philosophical issues of how we see the corporate social responsibility what they’re doing and because we need some more discussions as to government has always been receiving corporate donations through many, many forums, the federal government, the provincial governments, all three of our territorial government. Even with the Aboriginal governments, we’ve always had that type of request donations.

Now, this is kicking it up to another level that I don’t want to be involved in for the discussions. I’m not interested. I’m saying mahsi cho, because they always say…[English translation not provided]… I got no money. I want to just say that the branding and the screen time might be an issue, but this motion here is saying it’s rejecting the funds. That’s what it’s saying. Take it out of another one. All the other issues around us, it’s a big story, and I’m not going to accept this or support this motion because it’s going to have some other consequences. My people are hungry for this kind of information, and I’m getting hungry, so I’m going to close it there. I’m going to ask for a recorded vote on this one here.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I’ll allow the mover to make a final comment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I appreciate all the comments from my colleagues. I think Ms. Bisaro has said it well. There is a lot of spring boarding from the issues that we’re discussing, which is the role of the impacts of screen time and branding on small children and how we are going to deliver our early childhood development programs to try and avoid that. I think that’s what we’re talking about here. Many of the comments I heard I agree with, and I don’t see them as necessarily inconsistent with what I’m talking about, and I will say, quite frankly, corporations I see as having big value and have a role to play, many roles to play in our society. I see the iPads as a heck of a useful tool and Internet as playing a big role in today’s education, so those questions are not being debated, though I’m happy to hear the comments and perspectives of my colleagues.

A couple of comments I did want to highlight, Mr. Dolynny’s especially. He grew up with a block of wood. Raise your hands. How many of us grew up with a block of wood? This sounds flippant in a way, but no, that is the rub. Do you know that block of wood remains one of the most fundamental tools in early childhood today because it enables innovation. The other thing is many of us grew up in the outdoors, an incredibly complex world and that alone enables innovation and full development of the brain. As seemingly straightforward as that is, that is a huge point that I’m trying to raise here. The iPad certainly enables all kinds of learning, and Mr. Dolynny referred to his children’s drawing on that. I’m not taking away from that. I am talking about early childhood here. But iPads and screens generally do have these proven impacts and tend to limit.

I believe he said iPads that enable kids to have the jobs, and I say what we’re talking about here is having the jobs versus creating the jobs. I’d say Chevron… Sorry. Many corporations…and that’s the first time I’ve said a corporate name. Many corporations would love you to have the job, but I think this government would love to create the jobs, and that’s at least the motivation for what I’m talking about today.

The taxation problem has been mentioned, and I think there’s lots of fruitful room for discussions there. The underlying issue have been mentioned, and I hope my colleagues would agree that early childhood development has been a huge issue for me. I’ve tried to push hard on it in providing a lot of resources, and I tried to be a leader in our move towards developing and delivering early childhood education and development programs, and that’s because, like everybody in this room, I really do care for the young people and our smallest children as well as our youngest families that we’re trying to address with this program. I realize that this can be taken as taking away iPads from a family, but I am also trying to look at the big picture on what the net benefits will be, is there an alternative way that we should be delivering these programs that are proven to be more effective and could be done with the budget we have at hand.

On the remote possibility that this motion gets defeated here today, I hope the Minister will do some evaluation of the impact of iPads and branding and screen time on kids. This is an opportunity to actually put some information on what the impacts are. I know we’ve bought some iPads ourselves, but I don’t see any evaluation. I see us just jumping into a wholehearted – you know, deliver this regardless – program, so I think some evaluation of it with being cognizant of these potential impacts that science demonstrates would be worthwhile.

Again, portraying it as a philosophical issue. Au contraire. I think there is a lot of evidence in the literature that these are real issues, and it’s probably a body of literature we’re not all familiar with. I’m certainly not as familiar with it but I have had research drumming up some information on it and I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also learned a lot from the debate today. I’ll leave it at that. I know we’ve spent a long time at this and I appreciate the thorough discussion we’ve had.

Question has been called. The Members have asked for a recorded vote. All those in favour, please stand.

All those opposed, please stand.

All those abstaining, please stand.

Thank you. One in favour, 14 opposed and one abstention. The motion is defeated.

---Defeated

Committee, we’ll take a short break and continue on.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. Committee, we are on page 12 of the Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 1, 2014-2015. When we went for the break, we just finished a motion. I’m going to continue on this, and if there are any questions, please let me know.

Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, directorate and administration, not previously authorized, $1.378 million; education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $1.899 million. Total department, not previously authorized, negative $521,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 13, Transportation, operations

expenditures, corporate services, not previously authorized, $349,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $349,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 14, Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, corporate management, not previously authorized, $120,000; minerals and petroleum resources, not previously authorized, $250,000; energy, not previously authorized, negative $800,000. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To provide for the transitional allowances for eligible devolved employees, could I just have a brief explanation of what that is? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll go to Minister Miltenberger. Actually, we’ll go to Mr. Kalgutkar.

Thank you. Is this something that is payable to the employee immediately for the year sort of thing or is it paid out over the course of the year? Thanks.

So, could an employee that just stayed for a short time get a whole year’s benefit? Thank you.