Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will try to just keep mine specific so we can get moving on this. I will try not to take the 10 minutes. I guess my first one is that I would have to agree with my colleague who just previously spoke about communication. This is probably the biggest challenge that we are facing out there, is the messaging and how we get that messaging to the general public, because there is a lot of miscommunication out there. I say we, collectively, are doing a bad job because we are not getting the information or asking for the proper information and getting it out there to the people.
Junior kindergarten is a huge issue for the Northwest Territories in that it has an impact on a number of different organizations. For the record, junior kindergarten has been a big success in my region, and people have bought into it from the very beginning, except for one community. However, the caveat is it needs to be fully funded. We have heard it now in the House it has been fully funded, but, again, the numbers of communications on how much it is actually going to cost, it seems to be different from what we are hearing. We hear one thing, then we hear another thing. Then, getting communication, we find out from the press that it is fully funded; not from the Minister but from the press as we are going forward.
We understood from the Finance Minister it was going to be done throughout the sitting of this term, and then the Minister informed us it was going to get done. The advancement was going to be done during the time as communities are prepared to do it. I appreciate that, but, again, the actual costs of the funding, we still don't know. We have talked about inclusive schooling, language, busing. Those are the challenges out there that are not part of it.
I have heard the Minister speak in this House about how we have $150 million going to school boards; they have to make decisions. Well, again, that to me sounds like we are not taking ownership. Education is our responsibility, the Government of the Northwest Territories. We work with the divisional education councils and, yes, it is alright to give them some latitude, but we have to give them clear directions, and it needs to be done so that people of the Northwest Territories understand we are working together. It does not mean that we are fighting against each other all the time. It comes back to the college. We talked about the college: well, we give them money, and we give them some clear direction; well, then you've got to find the money. They are not doing strategic plans, so cuts are happening without strategic plans.
I have no problem making cuts if they are logical and they are processed properly, but if we are relying on a third party to do it, which is the college. That's not correct. We need to be working with them. We've got to be making informed decisions. If we're not making informed decisions, then we're not doing any value to what we're trying to do. The Minister talks about SFA and a great system; I totally agree with you. I totally agree it's one of the best, if not the best, in Canada.
I've had my children take the program. I've had my children take schooling down South and I've children take schooling up North. Both are meeting the needs. The North is, for some people, their comfort zone, the ability to stay in their home territory or in a centre like Yellowknife or Fort Smith. That's because they have family. They can rely on family. If they had to move down South, they're not going to have that family to support them. So again, this needs to be all taken into consideration when we're making decisions. Hard decisions have to be made, but they have to be made based on good evidence. If we're not doing good evidence then we're going to have the struggle we're having. Thank you, Mr. Chair.