Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to revisit the subject of daycares and daycare funding. Over the years this government has repeatedly professed that children are important and that we care for our children, but the actions they’ve taken belie their words.
We don’t have many licenced daycares in the territory. Lots of communities have no daycare at all. Those licenced daycares which do exist in the NWT can get some funding from Education, Culture and Employment to help them with their operations, but it’s well-known that the current funding opportunities are not really working for them. For example, daycares are still funded based on daily attendance of children, an onerous and time-consuming practice that does not provide stable funding for the licenced daycare operator.
Education, Culture and Employment has, since last fall, been reviewing the Early Childhood Program with a focus on funding and governance. There are seven pages of the terms of reference for the review on the Education, Culture and Employment website, and it indicates that a report was due on March 31st of this year. Information went out late
last year to daycares about a survey they could participate in, and a symposium was to be held. According to the survey request from ECE, the focus of input was to be on administration and funding processes. Strangely, the survey targeted front-line staff, those working directly with children, those not usually involved in administrative duties. Why not target managers and operators?
But I’m very glad that this review was undertaken. It was long overdue. Little has been heard of the results of the review, however. Did the work actually get done? Was the symposium held? What were the results of the survey and the symposium? Was a report completed by March 31st as was
required by the terms of reference? Does the department have recommendations from the review for improvements to the administration and funding of daycares? Will we finally see changes to the way that daycares are funded? I have lots of questions and could find no answers anywhere on the Education, Culture and Employment website.
Changes are very much needed and I hope that change is coming. I will have questions for the Minister of ECE. I hope he will have the answers that I and others seek. Thank you.