Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.

Masi. Minister of Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Infrastructure works closely with all our airport maintainers and airlines to monitor maintenance operations at all our airports across the Northwest Territories. We also conduct detailed airport inspections and assessments twice a year on all airports within the Northwest Territories and every year in the Nunakput region. We just finished a detailed inspection actually at the end of July with a number of personnel who went up there. We had engineers, electricians, surface specialists, and operations managers assessing each airport in the region. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the response. Mr. Speaker, under the current monitoring and maintenance plan, when will the Nunakput Airport runway surface next be rehabilitated?

At all our runways, we already have a number of stockpiles of gravel specific to airport runways, so this is already in place. With an effective maintenance plan in place and a drainage management plan in place, this helps extend the life of all the runways in the Northwest Territories. We also have an EK35 program which we put on all the runways, the gravel ones, in the Northwest Territories to help tighten up and stabilize and bind the gravel that's on the runway and keep the dust down.

To specifically answer the question of what we're doing in Nunakput, in the 2018-2019 capital plan we have drainage improvements specifically at the Sachs Harbour runway.

I appreciate the response. Mr. Speaker, has the Department of Infrastructure previously explored paving or chipsealing runways at one or more airports in the Nunakput region?

The department has investigated the advantages and disadvantages of doing this to the runways across the Northwest Territories. One of the cons of this whole thing is, if we were to even do this, say, in the northern region, put chipseal down and the chipseal peels up, it could cause delays on those runways and disrupt service to them; but the other side of it is the cost of the equipment that would be needed to repair these. We're not going to go out and buy paving equipment for each community to be able to address this thing.

Based on performance around that, Transport Canada does not treat runways any different if they are chipseal paved versus gravel, so there's no advantage to doing that. I believe the Province of Saskatchewan has done this and we are working closely with them and seeing what they have done, because they've already returned a number of those runways that they did back to gravel.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the response. Definitely travelling around northern Canada you see the advantages and disadvantages of having gravel runways, and definitely the limitations to the certain types of planes that they're allowed.

Mr. Speaker, my final question is: how is the GNWT's partnership in the Northern Transportation Adaptation Initiative being used to leverage funds and other support for stabilization and enhancement of airport infrastructure in our most northern communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We've worked with Northern Adaptation Initiative administered by Transport Canada and we've done a significant amount of research with their help to understand climate change and the impact on our airports and runway system across the Northwest Territories. We've also invested in drainage improvements, as we expect that this will become increasingly more challenging with permafrost degradation, and we will continue to work with them.

The other thing where we do work within the federal government is the Capital Asset Assistance Program, and we're always in discussions with them on how we can utilize that source of funding to help northern airports. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Will the Minister post the feasibility study of universal affordable daycare in the NWT to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment website, yes or no? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am well aware of the feasibility study that was tabled in the House in the last government. We can put a link to that Tabled Document on our website. Thank you.

I'd like to thank the Minister for his answer and his response. Thank you. Did the Department of Education, Culture and Employment undertake any work to produce the universal childcare implementation plan called for in the 2016-2019 mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories, yes or no?

Yes, we did start doing some work on the action plan. I do want to inform the Member and Members of the House that we're currently in negotiations with the Government of Canada on a bilateral agreement that will include an early learning and childcare action plan that does outline spending over a three-year period that will take us to the end of this government. Mind you, it's not a universal childcare action plan, but it will be an action plan that will help guide us in early childhood programming and services to the end of this government.

Again, I'd like to thank the Minister for his answer. Has the Department of Education, Culture and Employment calculated the value of the reduction in costs for universal childcare given that junior kindergarten has started this year, yes or no?

We're still getting the enrolment rates for junior kindergarten students, so we don't have an exact number. What we did look at, though, was every family was going to be saving anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 a year, and that's what we've got now, but we don't have the full enrolment rates of junior kindergarten at this time.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I'd like to again thank the Minister for his answer in the House, and I guess once we get those enrolment figures we can look at what rolling out universal childcare would actually cost.

My next question: will the Minister prepare a detailed action plan, including deliverables and completion dates, for the introduction of universal affordable childcare in the Northwest Territories, yes or no? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

On universal childcare, not at this time. I can't commit to that. As I did mention, we are in bilateral negotiations with the Government of Canada to get some funding that will roll out early learning and childcare action plan. As I mentioned, that will take us to the end of this government, and we will be sharing that with committee once that bilateral agreement is signed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to congratulate the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment for his Minister's statement today about small community employment. It's great to see. When positive things are happening we should recognize that commitment. I thank the Minister for that and his work in there. I realize this is short notice, so he may not have this information available, but can the Minister tell us how many projects have been used to date with this program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.