Good afternoon, colleagues. Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Speaker, this Legislative Assembly has a vision of strong individuals, families and communities sharing the benefits and responsibilities of a unified, environmentally sustainable and prosperous Northwest Territories. Achieving that vision requires a balanced approach that advances our economic, environmental and social priorities. This government is moving forward on all those fronts.

I would like to take a few moments to speak to the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link Project. On January 12, 2015, the government took the first step towards removing the limitations of our current communications infrastructure. This project will enable our government to improve our programs and services, particularly in the areas of education and health, and allow many more our residents and businesses to join the 21st century and

communicate in real time with the rest of the world.

Mr. Speaker, the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link Project was a shared vision of the 17th Legislative

Assembly that has become a reality.

We presently are just over a month into the construction of the project and I am proud to say the construction activities are taking place in the Deh Cho, the Tulita District, the K’ahsho Got’ine and the Gwich’in Settlement Area. Some highlights: • Over 187 kilometres of cable has been installed. • The project has employed 40 local residents.

This does not include residents supporting the project by providing camp and catering services.

• A directional drilling program was successfully

and safely completed at the Great Bear River

crossing. Future directional drills are also planned at the Liard and Mackenzie River crossings.

Mr. Speaker, since construction commenced, we have experienced increased interest, nationally and internationally, in the growth of the Inuvik Satellite Station Facility. Since its official inauguration in 2010, a total of three 14-metre receiving antennas have been installed on site. Soon we will see the construction of a fourth antenna at the site and continue to have discussions with other potential users.

In order to obtain a better understanding of how growing the Inuvik Satellite Facility can support construction of a fibre optic link up the Mackenzie Valley, the Government of the Northwest Territories has undertaken two missions to Europe. The initial mission was led by then Premier Roland, and in May 2013 I led a delegation to Kiruna, Sweden, where the Swedish Space Corporation operates one of the largest satellite ground stations in the world.

We have seen first-hand the significant positive benefits the satellite ground station and remote sensing industry have not only on the economy of Kiruna but also the important role they play in facilitating advanced learning at the Institute of Space Physics. The potential impact of an expanded satellite ground station in Inuvik on the Aurora Research Centre is significant and could make this facility one of the “the places to be” to conduct space-based Arctic research.

Mr. Speaker, I intend to lead a delegation to Europe in June 2015 to visit selected European space agencies to further promote both the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link and the Inuvik Satellite Station Facility.

I would like to conclude my statement by thanking the efforts and support from our residents, businesses and the leadership throughout the communities of the Mackenzie Valley to ensure the continued success of the project.

I also want to thank all my colleagues of this Assembly for their support in advancing the project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Speaker, ensuring our residents are able to share the benefits and responsibilities of a unified, environmentally sustainable and prosperous Northwest Territories is our shared vision. Infrastructure is a key part of achieving that vision and our government continues to participate in research that will improve northern infrastructure design and protect our northern environment.

I’m pleased to announce that Transport Canada will be providing $669,000 from the federal Northern Transportation Adaptation Initiative to proceed with two new innovative research and development projects on the Inuvik Tuktoyaktuk highway.

Through this partnership, the department will construct test sections on the new embankment to study innovative techniques for installing drainage structures and reinforcing deep fill embankments with geotextiles.

Both installations will be fully monitored and the results will help us improve methods for constructing transportation infrastructure on permafrost terrain, an area of northern research and development in which Canada remains a world leader.

These projects complement other research the department has undertaken to develop strategies to mitigate the effect of climate change on the NWT transportation system. The department’s Climate Change Adaptation Plan sets a framework for ongoing adaptation initiatives including ongoing research. Green Light, the department’s environmental strategy, continues to drive the department’s mitigation activities.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation will continue collaborating with other levels of government and the academic and engineering communities to advance transportation research. Through these partnerships, vulnerability assessments of airport runways, highways and winter roads are being completed. We have constructed and are monitoring the performance of test sections on Highway No. 3 and have ongoing projects assessing the impact of climate change on water levels on the critical Mackenzie River marine system.

Through the department’s participation on Transport Canada’s Networks of Expertise in Permafrost and the Network of Expertise on Arctic Waters, we continue to develop and test adaptation strategies with the Government of Canada, the

engineering and research community and our northern transportation counterparts in the Yukon, Nunavut, Manitoba and Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, identifying and adapting to the potential effects of climate change are critical to the long-term sustainability of the NWT’s transportation infrastructure. We will continue our research efforts to identify opportunities to improve transportation infrastructure and services across Northern Canada over the coming decades and prepare the system for challenges related to climate change. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today we are having a theme day on education. One of the challenges our students are facing today has to do with social passing.

A few of my constituents, as of late, have brought up the concerns of their children dealing with social passing. Many times our students, even though they are not prepared for the grade, are put in. They are just very concerned that we are setting up our students for failure.

They look back on when they used to go to school and how they had to work hard, study hard in order to pass the grades. If they didn’t do that work, then they were held back, which made them try even harder. That’s what they would like to see for their children. They want this government to review the policies we have put in place for social passing. That way we can encourage our students and make them study hard. That way when they graduate, they can go to college at the right grade level, and the same with university. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT is a proud territory with 11 official languages, nine of them Aboriginal representing the moral fabric of our culture and self-identity.

As proud as many of us are to declare this statistic to visitors and diplomats, it saddens me to think that not all is well in the world of northern language and culture. Evidently, many of our Aboriginal languages are in decline. Some are even

suspected of extinction if we don’t react accordingly.

Somebody must be asking, how is this possible when we pour millions of dollars annually into language and culture programs and services? The answer is not easily rectified with a dollar figure but more riddled with a crisis of governance, saddled with a lack of coordination and plagued with bureaucracy. If this sounds familiar, it should.

As with any attempt to deal with an issue through a myriad of different governments, so too is the complexity of accountability and transparency that is lost in design.

It is not the fault of any one party or agency or government as to why we face an Aboriginal language crisis in the North. We orphaned it years ago to the chagrin of complacency and, sadly, to its own colonialism and demise.

I have said on many occasions, to what rationale do we owe a language or culture to flourish when we have competing strategies such as the Aboriginal Languages Board directives, the Aboriginal Revitalization Languages Board directives, the Aboriginal governments’ five-year language plans, ECE’s 10-year Strategic Framework for Culture and Heritage, an Aboriginal Languages Secretariat accountability plan, the NWT Languages Commissioner monitoring plan and, of course, the recent department’s review of the Aboriginal Languages and Culture-Based Education or ALCB directive?

I have serious concerns about the viability and effectiveness of this recent ALCB directive and note a lack of coordination of all these recent levels of governance. I mean, how on earth is language supposed to survive the smothering blanket of bureaucracy? This is foolishness and it must stop.

I call upon the Minister of Education to look at this serious lack on this coordinated territorial approach to Aboriginal languages and to properly clarify and justify all these various labels of competing governance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker. I am proud to be standing here to speak about the Dechinta Bush University today. I have many constituents who have completed the seven-week programming at the Blachford Lodge and are furthering their own communities.

We as the Government of the Northwest Territories have been growing up with the onset of devolution, and so should our education system. Canada is the only circumpolar country without a circumpolar

university. I believe strongly, as the board of directors of the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning who operate the Dechinta Bush University, that it is time for us to establish a full-time accredited university in the Northwest Territories.

Since its inception in 2009, the Dechinta University has successfully provided land-based post-secondary education in the Northwest Territories. Dechinta is accredited by the University of Alberta and the University of McGill, which means the diplomas granted are from them. The Dechinta University cannot grant a northern diploma without first being empowered by the Education Act of the Northwest Territories.

I do want to acknowledge that they are being financially supported by the departments of Education, MACA, ENR, but for the most part, and gratefully so, is also privately funded by foundations.

The Premier of the NWT has been on record for saying that we need made-in-the-North solutions, and here we have a real made-in-the-North solution to establishing a recognized and accredited university in the Northwest Territories.

I challenge the Minister of Education to also support and create this made-in-the-North solution to a post-secondary education. Certainly, we do have the Aurora College which provides excellent service; however, we are not complete as an education system unless we have a university we can call our own.

Dechinta has to be recognized in our Education Act to be an accredited institution that can fully grant major and minor diplomas to our Northerners. In the past five years they have proven that university-calibre education can be taught in the Northwest Territories. They have also proven that there is demand for it. For the past three years, applications are far exceeding the spaces available. Students that are applying believe that they should not have to leave the North to pursue a degree relevant to their future, unless it is their choice. With this interest, Northerners do want to be educated in the North.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

In closing, we have to take the opportunity to empower ourselves as a territory by providing a truly complete northern education system. We must consider seriously the efforts of the Dechinta Bush University to offer to ourselves and to the world a truly unique major and minor diploma programming. Mahsi cho.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to give a shout out to the 8,350 students in the Northwest Territories and the 49 schools across the North and the 800 educators in the 33 communities in the eight regions. That was from a newsletter that I received this morning. Thank you, Minister Lafferty, for sending that over to us.

I also want to say a special congratulations and support to the 62 teachers in the Sahtu region who are working with our students and making a difference in the lives of the students.

At the same time, I was reading a quote from an Ojibway elder, Mr. Jimmy Jackson. Mr. Jackson said, “We’ve got to learn what’s going on today in the world, and we’ve got to to get an education so that we can survive.” I thought about this quote this morning because I know that we need to get an education either on the land or in school so we don’t lose. That’s key. We need lawyers, doctors, teachers, carpenters and welders. We need skilled people to help other people, and we need to learn and be in a state of learning all the time.

We also need to remember our culture, learn our dances, learn the significance of our dances, learn to sing our own songs, learn our songs, learn our language. In the education system we need to maintain our culture, our identity for the future generation. That’s the most important education, is to tell the young people that you can be whatever you want to be, but you have to work hard for it, you have to survive. You know, you can do that whenever you want. That’s the golden opportunity in the Northwest Territories. Be of service to other people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have all heard the traditional African proverb “it takes a village to raise a child.” In Alaska they take this one step further and say, “Raising a graduate is everybody’s business.” They recognize it is the responsibility of the entire community to be involved in providing the elements necessary to ensure success for our students, and so must we as we embark on education renewal.

When a student is successful, the entire community benefits. Children first need a solid grounding in early childhood development to ensure the full capacity to realize the potential of school-based learning. Without this foundation, there could be disappointment through even the best education programs.

The system they progress through must also reflect and address the issues that affect the ability of students to learn. A sole focus on building schools and student-teacher ratios and lesson plans is not adequate. Children who are hungry, tired, distracted or hyperactive are unable to pay attention and learn.

I am happy to see a focus on self-regulation, a method that students can be taught to ultimately help themselves to optimize the state they are in, in order to ensure they are solidly in the learning zone in and out of school.

In addition to self-regulation, social and emotional learning is now recognized as critical to effective learning and development of life skills that optimize lifelong learning and success. Social and emotional learning is a process through which people learn and apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions. It is based on the understanding that the best learning takes place in supportive environments that make learning challenging, engaging and meaningful. Social and emotional skills are critical to being a successful student.

These skills are taught through effective classroom instruction, positive activities in and out of the classroom and strong parent and community involvement. All parts of the child’s social environment must be involved in providing the conditions that support learning. Besides teachers, parents and family, public leaders and every person in the community must work towards the same goal: healthy, emotionally stable, curious children, excited to learn and help each other learn.

I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Communities must be assisted to recognize the importance of the factors affecting education because, after all is said and done, raising a graduate is everybody’s business.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to start off by saying that was nice to see the NWT Teachers’ Association set up their display and their meet-and-greet in the Great Hall this morning. They do it every year to talk about the successes and the great work of their educators.

I’d like to recognize all the educators throughout the North, but take this opportunity to recognize a

certain group that does extraordinary work, and that’s the staff at the Dechinta Bush University. They have taken a very unique approach in promoting our traditional knowledge, culture and education throughout the Northwest Territories and getting participants from all the regions. They actually utilize a lot of our elders to promote and revitalize culture and traditions, something that is needed within this government, while also working on other academic achievements.

I’d just like to mention a few highlights Dechinta has done over the years. First of all, they’re celebrating their five-year anniversary of land-based, university-accredited education. As my colleague Mr. Menicoche said, they’re getting more applications than the funding that they have to meet these growing needs and people that want to go to school and get educated. Not only educated in the academic sense but also educated in traditional knowledge and culture, which is something that’s being lost in some of the regions. This year alone, 97 people applied for 30 places, and for the spring they’ve had 34 applications and only 10 spots, so that means 24 other people are losing out on this very important education.

Dechinta has been operating in the NWT since 2009, and in that time they have had 250 course completions – and listen to this – and no dropouts during that time. You compare that to our education system, you can compare that to Aurora College system, compare that to any post-secondary education institution that we send students to down south, and this is 100 percent completion rates. That goes to show that we need to support this university in a bigger and better way. In fact, 10 people are in this program for the springtime and yet we’re spending millions of dollars on programs in the Aurora College system and we’re not even close to those numbers for certain programs. We’ve got to re-evaluate how we’re spending those dollars.

I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

There are a lot of good statistics and highlights that I’d like to recommend. I don’t have the time to do it at this moment, but what I do want to do at this moment is just thank Dechinta staff for their commitment to the delivery of quality education, traditional knowledge and culture, and utilizing our elders to do this, and also recognize them for the passion that they do in providing this work and for their dedication in making a difference in the lives of people across the Northwest Territories and in our young adults who are wanting to get an education and go back to school.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s Education Week, so it’s very timely to have a theme day today on education.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment is currently pursuing many initiatives. Education Renewal and Early Childhood Development, ECD, are just two of them. ECD generally encompasses the education and care provided for two- to four-year-olds. In the NWT it means licenced daycares, preschools, junior kindergarten and the Aboriginal Head Start program. Using that definition, about 70 percent of NWT two- to four-year-olds attend an Early Childhood Development Program.

That’s pretty good, but what is the quality of education and care that the children are getting? One of our programs, Junior Kindergarten, requires licenced early childhood educators, but a daycare licence issued by the GNWT does not require the staff that they employ to be certified. That they’re not required to do so is a direct result of how much this government spends on ECD. Although JK is fully funded by the GNWT, preschools and licenced daycares are not.

Canada, in comparison to other countries, spends much less for ECD programs, and in Canada the NWT spends the least of all Canadian jurisdictions on early childhood education, in 2014 just 1.1 percent of our total budget. Quebec, on the other hand, spent 4.3 percent of their 2014 budget on early childhood education.

The results of a recent study by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the University of Toronto show that only 1 percent of the NWT ECD budget goes to fee subsidies for early childhood programs. The GNWT does provide funds to daycares to assist in their operation, but there is no fee subsidy for daycare users, the parents. Amongst the provinces, some spend up to 65 percent of their early childhood budget on subsidies for parents and families. Here the GNWT child care user subsidy is only available by application through income assistance.

To quote the report: “Government subsidy levels often do not match the fees licenced centres must charge to attract and keep qualified staff. Low-income families are unable to pay for the gap between the fees charged and the subsidies governments provide, forcing them to settle for unregulated options.” In the NWT that means unlicensed day homes, a good option for child care, but not the best.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

The best would be a licenced facility with required certified early childhood educators and a mandated curriculum, but the NWT has no standards. Day homes do not have to have certified early childhood educators on staff, nor does the Department of ECE require the use of an approved curriculum. That’s not the case in other NWT ECE programs.

As part of the education renewal project, the Department of ECE has advised that the Early Childhood Development Action Plan includes a review of funding and governance for ECD programs. Part of that review is supposed to evaluate child care costs for families. This review is long overdue. We have a patchwork of programs for ECD and inconsistent methods of funding. For example, licenced day homes and preschools have not seen any significant increase in their funding for at least seven years and yet JK is fully funded.

Change is needed, and the sooner the better. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.