Any further questions. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to look at two other line items. Early childhood program. We seem to have an increase of roughly $1 million compared to last year. We look down a couple of line items and we have the healthy children initiative, which seems to be a reduction of roughly about a million dollars from the year previous. Is there any correlation between the two of these? If there isn't, maybe can we get explanations either way as it relates to the increase on early childhood programming and the reduction on healthy children initiative. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes. As we were going through Right from the Start, action plan and the way we, as I made a statement this morning, in terms of how we were going to be funding day cares and day homes, we did have to do short-term reorganization of how we fund certain areas. Also have a look at the early childhood intervention program, as well as how we were funding those as well. It all relates, but it is all going to the same type of focus and area. But as I mentioned, I did make a statement in the House this morning on how we fund day cares and day homes. That is going to be reflective in making sure that we are able to sustain our day cares and day homes in the communities.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Minister's comment. How about relative to the Healthy Children Initiative. That is a reduction of $1 million. Those funds have been rolled into the early childhood program, is that what I was hearing in the explanation, just to be clear. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.

Yes, that's pretty well correct, and moving forward is just providing funding to integrate early intervention services. I will ask my deputy minister for a little bit more detail on that.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Minister. Recognizing deputy minister Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one more question that I'd like to raise and I apologize if somebody else has already raised it, but as the Minister is aware and colleagues very well know, we have identified within our mandate that we will develop an action plan for universal daycare within the next couple years. Can the Minister describe for Committee where, if any, funds have been identified to start that action plan where it would be identified within the budget? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.

What the Universal Child Daycare Programs and moving forward, right now I think the early stages that we have made in terms of the programs and subsidizing our daycares and putting more money into our daycares and day homes is the first step. Next we are going to be looking at developing that action plan per to the motion that was brought in the House. And so right now, the funding changes that we have made is to have better services in the communities and to make sure that our daycares and our day homes are able to sustain their operations.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the reply. I'm just wondering then what are the next steps in developing the action plan and what resources will be put towards that? Are there any this year? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister?

Well, just looking at development of some of the parameters around the program itself, as you know early childhood is a big area to focus on. We had some very startling statistics with our EDI results last year and we want to make sure that we're adjusting some of the bigger issues, the priorities right, and eventually we will get into those areas, but obviously we can't do everything all at once. I think the changes that we made right now is really reflective in making early childhood a priority of this government. I think we need the support and make sure that we're implementing these programs right now, and then as things start to progress and we're able to sustain it then we started working on that action plan. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Lastly because I know we're going to move past education and culture and move into income security right away, and I just think this is the division that we want to ask any questions on junior kindergarten. So I just want to maybe ask the Minister at this time what the department's perspective is on junior kindergarten knowing that we actually had a report presented not long ago, the Independent Junior Kindergarten Review. Again, similar to that of the universal daycare, what is the department's next steps as it relates to junior kindergarten and what do we see rolling out in that regard for this fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.

Yes, out of that report it did talk about more consultation with the communities and specifically the communities that have had the program before. You want to make sure what's worked, what hasn't, we want to get an inventory of the resources, the space that’s available in the some of the communities that want to implement it. Initially, I believe there was 23 communities that did look at trying to do daycares. Some of them -- or I mean junior kindergarten. But some of them couldn't offer the program because they didn't have any four year olds. Our next steps is to go out into the communities, especially the ones that were working well and seeing what was the success in there, but also looking at other communities in terms of resources and space and if there's anything that we need to provide in terms of resources. Also consulting with our daycares, our day homes as well.

As I mentioned, we did make a statement earlier today on our funding for daycares and day homes so we're going to be able to show them that we can work together as well as the Aboriginal Head Start Program. We had meetings back I believe in November and this week our staff is going to be meeting with Aboriginal Head Start. There's, I believe, eight in the Northwest Territories and we're going to make sure as we roll out junior kindergarten that we want to have everybody onboard and that we're all providing the services with the right intention that it should be focused on some of our most vulnerable, which is our young kids going into kindergarten.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you Mr. Chair, I appreciate the response. Thank you.