Mahsi. Yes, most definitely those are a mix of the discussions that we are currently having as part of our Education Renewal and Innovation. Certainly, individuals may not be ready or entering the college avenue. We want to give them the tools to enter into workforce development or other opportunities that may arise as well. So, those are discussions that we’ve had with the regional representatives. When we did our forum across the Northwest Territories, we did listen and we are making drastic changes within our Education Renewal and also the Early Childhood Development Framework that will capture those key areas that the Member is referring to as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Speaker, this has been our last operations and maintenance budget, given that we have just under 300 days for the election to be called.

Will we see anything in the life of this government to know that we’re making some measurable strides to achieve what we want to achieve with our young people in our communities that are attending our education institutions?

Yes, the quickest answer will be most certainly. There will be some things that will happen within the three-year timespan starting immediately. We’ve touched base on improving academic achievement of all Northwest Territories students, increased the number and quality of NWT graduates – that’s what the Member is referring to – improved literacy and numeracy skills of all students, helped prepare them for employment, as well, or further their education after high school.

Mr. Speaker, these are just some of the areas that we’ve tackled. We’ll continue to work with the First Nations, the community governments, because it all takes partnership, working with the college, as well, as high schools. So, all these parties are involved as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to follow up with questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment as well. When we talk about educating and getting our residents out into the real world with a quality education, it’s all got to start somewhere and where that starts is with early childhood development. Specifically with licenced daycare organizations that we work with, this government funds licenced daycares.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, when was the funding policy on how we fund licenced daycares last reviewed? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The last overall review that we’ve undertaken was in 2007. With these different policies that are in place, we’ve talked about conducting a thorough review, and that’s been identified as part of the Early Childhood Development Framework and Action Plan that’s been presented to us by the selected groups as well.

Through the educational childhood programing, we’ve also talked about allocation of funding, and those are some of the discussions we are currently having. But the last changes in the review have taken place in 2007. Mahsi

That brings up concerns. So, over the last eight years we’ve been following a policy for the way we fund our daycares the same way, and in that time, whether the funding pot that we’ve had, we’ve also had an increase in daycare operators throughout the Northwest Territories. I see that in the budget address there’s $1.12 million that’s being allocated to early childhood to improve childhood outcomes. A lot of that money is going into wages and training.

I’d like to ask the Minister, when he’s looking at putting those out into the communities, can he take a look at where we have the highest cost of living or where there’s the greatest need to put these dollars, whether it’s here in Yellowknife, whether it’s in Fort Smith or in Inuvik, where there’s the highest need for the increases and the distribution of these funds. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what we will be doing. There are funds that have been identified as part of a child and family resource centre that we’re fully aware of. Not only that but there’s also a public awareness of the overall importance of early childhood development throughout the Northwest Territories. We’ve allocated some funds towards that as well. There are also iPads for new parents. There is the early learning framework. The framework that we’ve been working on for a number of years now, now it’s ready to roll out. Also, the ECD symposium. It would involve all the stakeholders across the Northwest Territories. Also, there are scholarships for students that are pursuing early childhood development programming. We are providing funding to those individuals as well.

The reason I ask if they look at priority regions and communities is if we put this back in this formula funding that we’ve been using since 2007, that means all regions would get a share of the pie, I guess, and it’s based on enrolments. You might have a region or a community that might not have high enrolments in daycares when this Junior Kindergarten came into effect, because now we’re getting more people out of the daycares, so it’s definitely affecting enrolments, so I’m glad that he’s doing that.

One area that I want to touch on with the daycares is these inspections. There was a news report that was given out not too long ago and why these inspections are not made public. If you or I or anybody that wants to put a child in daycare, we want to make sure that daycare is safe, it is healthy and it is adequate for our residents.

Can the Minister let us know why these inspections aren’t made public?

With

any

inspection, it is done on an annual basis. My department is also currently developing a way to share the inspection reports with the public with respect to accessing information. We still have to work with the process with the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We are currently working at that level within the department. We’re making improvements along the way and this is one of the areas as part of our communication dialogue.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the last two years our population has decreased, and if it wasn’t for births and some of the people moving in, it would have a drastic effect on us. In the small communities it’s having a drastic effect on licenced daycare facilities.

I’d like to ask the Minister, are there any other subsidies that some of our daycares can access

that will help them keep the doors open, keep the lights on and provide a service for our families, our parents in the communities?

In addition to a direct subsidy that the Member is referring to, we also provide daycare operators and also residents. Residents may also be eligible to helping out with the offset of the costs of daycare. It’s just part of the options that we work with across the Northwest Territories. There’s also income assistance child care allowance that is provided as financial support to parents so that they can participate in the labour force and pursue education or training opportunities. Those are just some of the areas that we continue to push forward as part of our subsidy towards the daycare operators. We’ll do what we can to offset the costs as well.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The criteria that we use are to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of programs and services that are delivered by this government.

I challenge the Premier to prove to me that we are improving the efficiency of programs and services when we remove long-standing employees from the position where they have become quite proficient.

To the Premier, I’d like to know what analysis has been done of the actions taken with regard to decentralization to date. What are the results from, I think it’s phase one and phase two that we’ve completed at this point of the decentralization plan? How many positions were vacant? How many were vacant or new positions? How many employees did we lose? How many employees left the NWT taking our $25,000 per person federal grant with them?

I’m pleased to say that we have decentralized 150 jobs to the regions and to the communities. We have a retention policy so that any employees that are affected were incumbents

of decentralized positions that would prefer to remain in their existing position are given priority hire so that they can stay in their community of choice. They have the benefit of getting priority hire, so I don’t believe we’ve lost any employees that have moved to the South because of decentralization.

I would presume we haven’t done any analysis since there was no reference to that, and I would encourage the Premier to do that.

It’s one thing to ask somebody to take another job, but when they are happy in their job and they’re good in their job, why are we forcing them to move into a job that they maybe don’t enjoy?

I’d like to ask the Premier, considering our current fiscal situation and the need to reconcile our expenses and our revenues, how can the Premier and Cabinet justify increasing the cost of some person years just to decentralize?

When we look at the benefits from decentralization, we have to take other elements into consideration such as diversifying the economy, sharing the wealth and also the fact that we are investing in the Northwest Territories. We have committed to spending $21 million over three years to build additional housing in remote communities so that we can have houses and office space for positions in the smaller communities.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.