Yes, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Thank you.

Minister Lafferty, would you please introduce the witnesses, for the record?

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. To my left is deputy minister of ECE, Gabriela Eggenhofer; to my immediate right is Olin Lovely, assistant deputy minister of corporate services; and to my far right, Dana Heide, associate deputy minister with ECE.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Eggenhofer, Mr. Lovely, Mr. Heide, welcome back to the House. Committee, we last left this department on page 66 of the main estimates. Education and culture, grants, contributions and transfers, total grants and contributions, $209.153 million. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few comments. Under the healthy food for children and youth, the $650,000, I made a statement in the House and asked questions of the Minister earlier this week about the East Three gardening program and the success that has been had in terms of engaging our youth, increasing attendance, as well as providing an opportunity for students to learn something that they’re not really accustomed to doing in terms of agriculture and the work that they’re doing and how it spills out into the community where they contribute to soup kitchens and other feasts.

I was wondering if the Minister, in future budgets, would be looking at this program as a framework where we could build into other schools, especially maybe some of the remote schools where they don’t get all the fresh fruits and vegetables, and even some of the unique ideas that they’re going to be pursuing here in the future.

I just want to ask the Minister if he’d be looking at contributing to that program and taking it out into the communities as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses, Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I believe this is a great idea and we need to start talking not only with Inuvik but other regions as well. The more healthy food that we can have into our school system, the better for our children to learn. Having dedicated resources towards this type

of initiative, obviously that would be considered as we move forward. Mahsi.

You know, this program, coming from one of the highest communities in the Arctic, was recognized nationally from right across Canada out of seven recognized programs. I read them all. They’re all really great, innovative projects to enhance education in the youth, and I think that not only the growing program but I think that the department might need to look at this Ken Spencer Award through the Canadian Education Association and see what programs we can use to implement and get a better way to educate our youth.

Would the Minister also be willing to look at that as an option? Thank you.

When we talk about bringing the agriculture programming into our school system, I need to work very closely with ITI since they have that portfolio. But by all means, this is an area that we need to explore further, to see what’s out there in the regions, in the communities, and present that idea to the school boards as well. So, most definitely this will be our topic of discussion. Mahsi.

I’ve spoken to the coordinator over the last couple of years on the success of that program, and I was mentioning that it would be great to take it out into the communities. His expertise, working in the North, working in the schools, and the climate and environment that he does work in has been successful. He did mention that he’d be willing to, if the funding was there and the framework was there, that he would work with other schools and help purchase equipment. You know, do the proposals and get the program in the schools. I think it would be great if the Minister could follow up with the staff on that and support him in the successful program.

Just one other quick question here was on the literacy funding. I see there’s $2.3 million contributed to organizations to deliver literacy programs, and we do know that there are high rates of speech pathology within the Department of Health and Social Services of clients and working with children who need to have better development of their speech.

Can I just get an idea of what kind of literacy programs are being delivered in the communities, because that’s quite a bit of money going into these programs. Thank you.

Obviously, literacy is one of our top priorities within our department. We’ve heard over and over from committee members that we need to focus on developing literacy programming and having partners involved. So, this is involving NGOs from across the Northwest Territories, working with Aurora Collage as well, and again NGOs, to deliver various

programs from K to 12 equivalent courses and having the NWT Literacy Council actively engaged in this, as well, because they represent all the communities as well.

I believe that more investment in this area will be seeing positive results. We have seen the results already and we want to continue that trend and work with our true partners such as the NWT Literacy Council and NGOs across the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Continuing on, grants, contributions and transfers, I have Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just a quick question here under the education authority contributions. It’s been brought up a number of times in the past, the home boarding issue in Tsiigehtchic. We’re constantly finding ways for parents to find people in Inuvik that their children could stay with when they reach Grade 10 level for three years. What is the department doing to make sure that we have good homes for these students to stay in while they’re going to school in Inuvik?

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This is not the first time that this has been brought to my attention. Not only Inuvik but other regional settings, as well, even the Sahtu and other places. This has been brought to our attention where we need to have a secure residence for our students that are attending at the regional high school level coming from the small, isolated communities. We need to have a suitable place for them to study and to have shelter. We work very closely with the DEAs and DECs to make that a priority for them, because we want every child to be successful as part of their education programming.

It is the district education authority and also the district education council, we provide funding to them and they provide housing or residences available for these students, and we support them at that level. We will continue to support those areas and, again, work very closely with the authorities.

Just on another issue. Under the Aboriginal languages broadcasting, a couple Members mentioned last week they had a huge storm up in our region, and while we had that, wind took out the antenna at the Tsiigehtchic radio station. Is there funding available for cases like this to get the local radio station up and running to help out the community in a case like this?

Again, the Aboriginal broadcasting, even at the local level is very important for the community and also my department. We’ve heard Mr. Blake’s challenge. There have been some issues with the tower. We

are working with that. We do have program funding, but we don’t necessarily have infrastructure funding. We’re seeing what’s the best solution addressing this within my department and working very closely with the community, and we will continue to update the Member on this particular matter because we want it up and running again along with others such as CKLB and important Aboriginal broadcasting across the North.

I’d like to ask the Minister, do they have a list of who accesses this funding? Does it all go to just one station or how is it set up? Is it based on communities, regional centres? How is this set up?

It’s by community. Obviously, a community has to access and apply through the application process for funding. The funding is available, it’s just a matter of a community applying for it, so I would highly encourage those communities that have not applied to apply for the funding that’s available for them.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Continuing on with questions, education and culture, grants and contributions, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a couple of questions on this page. I see the Early Childhood Worker Grant Program is increased over last year, and I’m happy to see that. How has the uptake been on that so far this year and what sort of increase does this mean for workers? I know that early childhood workers’ salaries are typically much lower than the value that we put on them, so I support this program. I’m just wondering about the update and how that’s working.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Lafferty.