As plans move forward and we develop our business cases for the next consecutive years we will continue to look at all people and opportunities and engage all Aboriginal groups in the settlement area to be involved in the contracting.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All I heard there was blah, blah, blah.

---Laughter

You know, Mr. Speaker, as winter is coming along here even though there's not much snow I'm hoping that, for example, in Tsiigehtchic that they can finish their contract. But, you know, if by chance we get too much snow and the work can't be done, will the Minister be willing to extend that work into next year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will look into this particular contract, but I suspect that, depending on where they're at, we can have a look at carrying this work over.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I made my statement on profiling the Aboriginal Head Start Program so I wanted to follow-up with questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. As I stated, the Aboriginal Head Start Program has been in operation for the past 20 years, and it's a federally-funded initiative, so I wanted to ask the Minister: what is the status of the Aboriginal Head Start Program within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment? Mahsi.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Early childhood is an important aspect of the work we do here within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment as well as working with the Department of Health and Social Services to make sure that our children get the right education, the right start to a long life and a very prosperous future. Working with that are groups, whether it's daycares, day homes, Aboriginal Head Start, we take all that into consideration when we're supporting them. We have supported Aboriginal Head Start for the last few years and will continue to support them and work with them to make sure that the programs that they're providing is meeting the needs of the community. We do have eight communities that are providing Aboriginal Head Start in Northwest Territories and I was also very glad to be in Fort Providence this past fall and witnessed the graduates, the ones that went through that Aboriginal Head Start Program.

I'd like to thank the Minister for his reply. Recently we passed a motion in this House basically positioning the department to contemplate the idea of an implementation plan to move forward on the JK initiative. How will the Aboriginal Head Start Program be part of the JK Implementation Plan?

I know we've heard those concerns of the implementation of junior kindergarten; the impacts it will have on daycares, day homes, in particular on this question Aboriginal Head Start. We have consulted and we have engaged with the eight Aboriginal Head Start staff and managers. We have been meeting with them on a regular basis. On August 24th we had the Public Health Agency of Canada come and speak with the managers as well and inform them that funding will not be affected going forward with the implementation of junior kindergarten. It is in our mandate to provide early childhood programs, quality early childhood programming, in the Northwest Territories, working in collaboration with our partners and I think working together we can do a great job. I think some of our communities are offering junior kindergarten as a half day and Aboriginal Head Start as a half day, so students are getting a full day of early childhood programming, particularly the four-year-olds.

Mr. Speaker, my question

is the Aboriginal Head Start Program surely has amassed a lot of experience and expertise in terms of running program directly benefitting children in small communities. What lessons can be learned from the Aboriginal Head Start Program as Education, Culture and Employment moves forward with the implementation of the junior kindergarten?

When we're providing program services in the Northwest Territories, we always engage and consult with our stakeholders moving forward. Aboriginal Head Start has been very successful, and they focus on the culture and identity of the people of the Northwest Territories, and that's something that we're really implementing within our education system from JK to grade 12 and beyond and we want to make sure that some of their best practices and around the curriculum that we're developing is working closely together.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the Minister of ITI for his statement earlier today and showing our support for the mining and what it does for our economy. So my questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and the Minster alluded earlier today that the Mineral Incentive Program has been a very big success. In fact, it's been oversubscribed, so my question for the Minister is is there any consideration to increase this investment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister for Industry, Tourism, and Investment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member is well aware, I've recently just got this portfolio and I've been reading up as much as I can on some of this stuff. I believe when we get into looking into the strategy of how we're going to move some of this stuff forward, we're going to have to sit down and review some of this and welcome probably input from the regular Members when we do this as well, and that could be one of the things we looked at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the Minister's reply and I look forward to working with him on the possibilities of increasing the Mining Incentive Program. Second question would be that the Minister alluded today that we're going to be working to create a new act that will modernize our government's approach to mining by streamlining our regulatory environment. I wonder if the Minister could please share with us any particular specifics about what he means in terms of streamlining our regulatory environment.

Like I said in my Member's statement today, moving forward with the act this will bring our act in line with northern priorities and the realities of how operating in the Northwest Territories is, and we will work with -- as I said, I think NWT intergovernmental council and the Aboriginal governments industry and NGOs and the general public in how we're going to move this forward, and so there's going to be a lot of information gathered in how we're going to bring this forward to work for Northerners.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister spoke today earlier about that there has been community participation in mining through regional mineral development strategies and that the Deh Cho in fact has been a leader in this regard and that the Inuvialuit, Sahtu, and the Tlicho regions are also interested in developing such strategies. I'm just wondering, Mr. Speaker, is the regional mineral development strategies going to be any different than our own territorial one, and will they be inclusive of land use plans?

Yes, it was quite exciting actually to see the Deh Cho being a leader in this. As my prior life when I was the Metis president, it's something I've strongly believe that we should be doing in the Metis South Slave Region. So getting back to the Member's question, I think developing as regional strategies is very important and we need to work on this initiative. Is it going to be part of the land use planning? I believe regionally they want to work on how they're going to move their land use plans for their own self-governments and their own governments and their own regions, but they're going to have to be tied, work closely, how we develop the territorial land use plans and the regulations and stuff moving forward.

Thank you to the Minister for his reply. Earlier today, also announced that there's been some success in delivering the mining matters curriculum, and this is in schools now and in particular in the Sahtu and the Deh Cho region has interest in wanting to put this in their school programs as well. I just wonder can the Minister let us know if in fact other regions would be interested in having this mining matters curriculum brought into their schools, eventually having a territory-wide curriculum.

Yes, we are rolling this out into the Deh Cho I guess because all three schools that are going to be taking it on this week are all in the Deh Cho region: Fort Providence, Fort Simpson and Liard, and I believe we will be working closely with ECE on how we can implement this across the Northwest Territories.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.