Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I just want to provide some general reflections here, as you requested. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment plays a very important role in the NWT in controlling some key funds which are widely accessed, portfolios such as education and income assistance, to name just a couple. I recognize that the department is looking at substantial change, with a view to improving service delivery in these areas, but I have to point to a very consistent pattern of communication breakdown that has happened between both the department and the public and the department and the Regular Members.
We have worked very hard leading up to today to understand whether junior kindergarten is fully funded in all places for all additional costs in the next school year, and we have not received a definitive answer on that at all. Junior kindergarten could have been a good-news story, but because of the way that the information was distributed, it was not that. Likewise, instructional hours; this is a very significant change that is being proposed by the department, particularly for the high school grades. We have yet to receive a briefing as Regular MLAs on this initiative, and that is simply unacceptable. We have heard in the meantime about an interim draft plan for Aboriginal language and culture; not that that issue isn't important, but the consequences of changing instructional hours affect every single child in the NWT.
The income assistance changes is another area that I will have questions on. I know that the Minister says that everyone is better off. I am still not a hundred per cent convinced that they are as well off as he thinks they are, but this is another area where a lack of clarity about what was on offer and how it was going to be funded has really hobbled efforts to understand what is going on here.
Those are three of my examples that I want to bring to the Minister's attention, and to his staff. We want to see, as they want to see, the best opportunity provided to the children of the NWT to make the best of their opportunities and to realize their full potential in their lifetimes.
We also want to see that people who access post-secondary education are able to receive valuable education that will keep them in the North. We need trained people in the North. Every measurement possible says that that is the case. Most of all, I just want to impress on the Minister that we really need to improve the communication with the public and with the Regular MLAs around these initiatives so that he can turn us into supporters instead of adversaries. Thank you.