My understanding is that this training is available to all departments, and I think it must be successful: 64 per cent of our work force is comprised of women; 50 per cent of our deputy manager cadre are women; women are part of our affirmative action policy, so, if a man and a woman apply for a senior job, the woman has priority. So I think, as a government, we're doing a very good job in these areas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment. Aboriginal Head Start operates in eight NWT communities. Each program site is community driven. It's fully resourced and staffed with early childhood educators. It scores well on evaluations. It connects children with their language and culture. Does the Minister support the continuation of the Aboriginal Head Start program in the NWT? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we do support the Aboriginal Head Start. I support Aboriginal Head Start program in the Northwest Territories. Any type of early childhood development programs that we can offer in all of our 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, I do support. It is a mandate of this government. I know where the Member's going in terms of bringing in junior kindergarten, and that's also one essential piece of the mandate developed by this 18thLegislative Assembly, and that is to support quality early childhood development in collaboration with existing organizations. Our department is working with Aboriginal Head Start in seeing how we can work together to provide these essential and critical programs and services to families and to the children.

What I'm interested in knowing is how the Minister is going to accommodate Aboriginal Head Start and, for that matter, the Montessori school in Yellowknife, as well, while introducing junior kindergarten in every NWT community? How will they coexist, especially in the small communities?

Yes, it is a priority to try to get some early childhood development programs in all of our communities throughout the Northwest Territories. We are continuing to meet with Aboriginal Head Start. I believe we just had a recent meeting with them earlier this month. We want to see how we can implement the two programs together. Moving forward, in August, we're going to be holding our Third Annual Early Childhood Development Symposium here, in Yellowknife, and, at that time, we'll sit down with all daycares, licensed daycares, day homes. We'll get information from Aboriginal Head Start.

As the Member knows, September 2015, we did have a technical review of junior kindergarten which became public in January. Out of those, out of the review, we did get input from Aboriginal Head Start. We also got input from licensed daycares. So we're continuing to work with these organizations to ensure that we're all on the same boat in providing early childhood programs and services to families and to the children that need it.

It is my understanding that Aboriginal Head Start came away from their meeting referred to by the Minister without feeling that they'd been heard, let alone accommodated. So I am going to back to my question about what the government is going to do to address the concerns about JK implementation that was raised, has been raised, by Aboriginal Head Start. It's just simply the case that there are not enough children in the small communities to have both programs, so how will the government choose which one to continue funding?

Just going back a little bit further, to the report. There was eight recommendations that came out of it. We are following the most critical one, is that going out and doing more consultation. In terms of the Aboriginal Head Start, we do fund them yearly of $100,000. The junior kindergarten is an optional program. We are working with communities. I believe we have one community right now that does provide Aboriginal Head Start as well as junior kindergarten. We also had recommendations of having Aboriginal Head Start in the morning, junior kindergarten in the afternoon to look at all ways we can show support to the organization but to the families, as well.

In terms of Aboriginal Head Start, as well, we are looking across Canada at other jurisdictions that offer Aboriginal Head Start and have been almost forced to look at two- and three-year-old admissions when junior kindergarten was implemented within their jurisdictions, and we want to see what kind of successes that's coming out of those. So we're looking at jurisdictions in that sense that have had to look at enrolling two- and three-year-olds and seeing the impact of that. So we're looking at all different options to move forward. I said the most critical piece of that review was to go out and consult and continue discussions. We'll hear more at the symposium in August, and we'll take it from there.

Masi. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. It's my understanding that the Aboriginal Head Start and Montessori schools are staffed with early childhood educators rather than Bachelor of Education teachers, so I'm just not clear how, what, the government's commitment is to the resources to put all of these programs in play in all the communities of the NWT. Most particularly and to my colleague's point, what will happen to the 40 staff who are now associated with Aboriginal Head Start? Mahsi.

Earlier in the session, I did make a statement in this House, changes to early childhood program funding. We're focusing on three areas: operating subsidies, early childhood intervention programs, as well as supporting new early childhood licensed operators. I'll get new stories right across the Northwest Territories. Aboriginal Head Start, we'll continue to support them. We give $100,000 every year, and we're looking at what other jurisdictions are doing where they've had to implement, who are implementing, junior kindergarten took effect. We're seeing what kind of successes, challenges, are there, and we're going to take those, that kind of information, moving forward and see how we can make it successful here, in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Masi. Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too was very pleased to attend the Dehcho First Nations Annual General Assembly, and was very happy that the Member from Deh Cho, the Member from Nahendeh attended as well. At that meeting, it was announced that a Ministerial Special Representative reporting to the federal and territorial governments will come into effect, that this Ministerial Special Representative will provide objective advice on whether an agreement is possible and what the key terms of such an agreement might be.

I should note that this MSR, as we refer to it, is not a mediator or facilitator acting between the parties to negotiate or facilitate negotiations. My timeline is that Minister Bennett, the plan is for her to visit the Northwest Territories within the next two weeks, I think it's around July 18thor 19th, at which time we expect that the name of the Ministerial Special Representative will be announced. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

At a time when governments are thinking of reconciliatory steps in light of the TRC Action Plan, in the Minister's statement to the Dehcho Assembly yesterday he stated that this government's offer to the Dehcho will take on a new approach. Can the Minister explain how different the new approach will be from the old approach?

The new approach is that we have recognized that for the past 20 years all sides took very hard established positions and nobody moved and nobody blinked. So we feel that now with the new approach we've changed negotiators, we have different legal advisors, and we will be working with Special Joint Committee between Cabinet and committee. We have a new federal government that's very receptive and open, when we make a request we usually get a response within a few days. We have very open communications with the federal government.

The new Ministerial Special Representative will report to myself and to Minister Bennett. We have been having our negotiating teams talking so that we all start from a common ground, everybody is starting from the same understanding of where we're at, and we feel that this lays out a very new foundation so that we can have an agreement within the life of this 18thAssembly.

Of course there are other outstanding land claims. Can the Minister provide an update as to how other outstanding land claims will be addressed?

Yes, we recognize that there are still outstanding land claims, there are at least four. We expect to take a similar approach. We had talked to the federal Minister about it as well and we've met with all of the different Aboriginal governments that are involved in the land claim, obviously each are at different stages or levels of negotiations, if I can call it that, and/or expectation is that whatever we do at the Dehcho First Nations table will obviously have implications for other tables, and we recognize that. Our object is to settle the land claims, as we've said many times. We want to make some very good advancements in all of the four within the life of this government.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister agree that the 18thAssembly will work to complete all outstanding land claims and self-government negotiations before the 100thanniversary of Treaty 11 of 1921? Mahsi.

I think that's what we would like to aspire to and I think this next year will indicate whether we can achieve it or not. I think we're making very good progress on self-government negotiations up and down the valley. I think we're very optimistic that we can make some good progress on the Dehcho First Nations, and I believe that if we do that then we should be able to make good progress on the other negotiations.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.