Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my understanding that medical travel in Hay River is unique in the territory because it's provided by a third party. How long is this arrangement scheduled to last for? Thank you

I think it was a contract that was let in the previous government prior to my time. I think we're on a year-to-year-basis contract. I think we're going to be coming to an end of that contract at some point, at which point we will be exploring options to provide medical travel in a consistent manner with different regions of the Northwest Territories, which would mean the NWT Health and Social Services Authority would be responsible for medical travel like everywhere else. Thank you.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, further to my statement saluting the accomplishments of the Yellowknife Daycare Association, I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about daycare and child care.

In June the federal government announced it is putting $7 billion into creating 40,000 new daycare spaces over the next 10 years. Can the Minister tell us how this money will be used in the Northwest Territories and when it will start flowing? Mahsi.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to congratulate the Yellowknife Daycare Association on their accomplishments and the work that they've done to provide service here in Yellowknife.

I want to update the Members here that the GNWT is currently still in negotiations with the federal government regarding the funding agreements on early learning and child care. Negotiations are ongoing and I look forward to seeing that report and sharing that report and outcomes with this House, and I am looking for feedback. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the answer from the Minister. Affordability and accessibility are the two big issues with child care in the Northwest Territories. I talked a little bit about how the Yellowknife Daycare Association will be addressing accessibility. I'm wondering what the government is doing to make child care more accessible in the communities that don't currently have it.

I'm proud to say that currently we have 23 communities across the Northwest Territories that offer early childhood programming. In the last little while we worked with some of our smallest communities to incorporate daycare programs, day home programs, and we're continuing to work with the other communities to get that up and running, and working with them on how we will do that.

We have made significant increases to the daily rates for early childhood program funding that came into effect October 1st of 2016. We do have start-up costs for people, groups, organizations that want to start up daycares, so there's a lot of work that we have done during this government on early childhood programming.

I acknowledge that the daily rates went up in October of last year, but the fact is that child care is very expensive. In fact, here in Yellowknife it's a working family's greatest expense after they pay for accommodation. As a result, really, licensed child care in a facility is only affordable for families with two good incomes. I'm wondering what work the Minister is doing on improving access to child care subsidies for lower income working families.

We continue to try to see what we can do in terms of providing subsidies for our infants to four-, five-, six-year-olds who go into early childhood programming. Junior kindergarten I think was a very good step in terms of providing early childhood programming for families in our communities right across the Northwest Territories. We continue to see how we can address the high cost of living. I think one big one was changes to the Canada Child Benefit as well as changes to the NWT Child Benefit; I think really made a big improvement in that area.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that it is useful to have junior kindergarten, and that is it is useful also to have an increased NWT Child Benefit, but that does not really address the cost of child care that families are paying for infants to age three, that is, prior to school age. I am wondering whether the Minister will investigate the feasibility of subsidizing the cost of child care on an income-tested basis, and set it up on a sliding scale like the NWT Child Benefit. Mahsi.

Over the course of this government and the end of the 17th Legislative Assembly, a lot of work has gone into early childhood programming. This government made it a mandate and a priority during the life of the 18th Legislative Assembly, and we continue to try to address high cost early childhood program needs. I will take that suggestion back to the department and see what we can work on and look at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned in my statement, my questions were directed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment with regards to the Skills 4 Success. My first question to the Minister is: what is the progression or report since the Skills 4 Success was introduced in the Northwest Territories, more specifically in the Sahtu region? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We did release the Skills 4 Success action plan in November of 2016, so we are just coming up to about a year of having that out there in the public and in the communities throughout the Northwest Territories. We are working with our partners. We are working with schools. We are working with post-secondary institutions and CLCs to get that information out there on how we can address that. Specifically with the Sahtu region, if the Member recalls, we have four goals under the Skills 4 Success, and under each one we have a lot of priorities. To get a progress on all the priorities would take a lot of work, but I can assure the Member that we are doing a lot of work throughout the Northwest Territories in every community and in all the regions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I know it was a broad question, but as I mentioned in my statement, it is a very proactive measure to see that the department is identifying and forecasting the opportunity so that it can be shared with our students in the academic classroom world. My question is: as mentioned in my statement, what work initiatives are under way with the Department of Health and Social Services in preparation for the transitional start-up at the Sahtu Regional Health Centre?

We have a small community employment strategy as well that we are working with. We have our apprenticeship, trades, and occupational strategy that we're trying to see how we can work with our small communities in our regions. I would have to see specifically what is coming out of our regional office in the Sahtu and how they have been working to get the skill force up, and people certified so that they can enter the work force and be part of the building and ongoing staffing at the health centre in Norman Wells, so I would have to talk with my colleague as well as look at what our regional staff is doing with it at the Department of ECE in the Sahtu.

It leads me to my third question here: would the Minister work with the counterpart there, the Minister of Health and Social Services, to coordinate together both departments making community visits to share the forecasted opportunities as identified in the Skills 4 Success program?

I know our career development officers at the regional centres do a great job of highlighting the Skills 4 Success document, the action plan, as well as our labour market information needs assessment. We work with partners with other departments. We work with our partners in business. We work with our partners in education, taking it into the schools as well as post-secondary. I will make sure that my colleagues within the Department of Health and Social Services, as we look forward to having more work force in the health centre for an ongoing purpose, do understand some of the needs of staffing at the health centre.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question, getting back to the action plan or the campaign plan, if you want to call it that: would the Minister share a marketing campaign brochure, addressed to the Sahtu leadership, identifying the opportunities in the Skills 4 Success initiative? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I have travelled over the Northwest Territories and been to career fairs, NWT Skills, our department does a great job of highlighting the labour market information needs assessment. The opportunities with Skills 4 Success, immigration strategy, ATOC strategy, a lot of the good things that our department is doing, and ensure the Member that we are getting out there, giving that information to residents and to our partners. However, any resident in the NWT can access our website as well. It has a lot of good information on all of our strategies and how to apply to them, and see what kind of program services as well as funding that they are entitled to or can apply on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.