Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my statement today, the second largest expense for a family of four in Yellowknife is childcare, amounting to $16,000 a year to provide full-time care for a child and after-school care for another child. To that end, I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about the recent study of childcare in the NWT that revealed that families had difficulty accessing childcare subsidies. I am wondering what the Minister is doing to make it easier for low-income families to qualify for childcare subsidies? Thank you.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Any constituent's issues that the Member has coming by, I encourage you to come and see me at my office, and we can do it on a case-by-case basis. Our government has made improvements to subsidies that we give to all of our daycares throughout the Northwest Territories. We have 11 communities that currently do not have daycare services or access throughout the NWT, and that is a focus and a priority to try to get childcare and daycare services to those 11 communities that currently do not have that.

We do have a junior kindergarten program that we have implemented territorially this year, and we are continuing to monitor how that is working out, but any concerns that the Member has in terms of families that have approached her, or any Members in this House, I encourage them to come and see me at my office or send me an e-mail, and we can work on addressing that.

Our client service officers also work very hard with our income assistance clients to give them the services that they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to reiterate that the living wage is to enable to families to earn enough money to stand on their own feet. We hear all the time in this House that the best remedy for a social program is a job. These are people who have jobs, but they are not earning enough money to make ends meet, unless they are getting $22.24 an hour in Yellowknife. To that end, how is the Minister going to reduce the second-largest expense that these families have, which is childcare? What can he do to help working families afford the cost of childcare for their families?

As I mentioned, we have made changes to our childcare subsidy programs. Myself and the Member from Yellowknife Centre actually attended the opening of the new daycare here in Yellowknife and increased spaces that allowed for more of all ages that can access the daycare programs.

As I mentioned, we have provided junior kindergarten to four-year-olds across the territory, which on average saves anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 for families that put their children into the junior kindergarten program. There is a lot of work that has been done, and we continue to work with our daycares to make sure that they get all the opportunities for the childcare subsidy that is provided to them.

As with many things in the NWT, what is required in Yellowknife is not the same thing that is required in Paulatuk. In Yellowknife, we have an affordability question. In other small communities, a third of them in the NWT, they have accessibility problems; there are no daycares. Can the Minister craft a solution that takes into account the needs of different kinds of communities in providing affordable and accessible childcare?

Masi. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday during Committee of the Whole the Minister told us he had signed off an agreement with the federal government on childcare, and he didn't provide any other detail on that, except that there would be money carried over into the next fiscal year. Could the Minister please advise us what this agreement says about affordability and access ability of childcare? Thank you.

Yes, we did sign off on an agreement with the Government of Canada to provide more early childhood programming throughout the Northwest Territories. We are waiting on the signing from the federal government in order to make sure that the action plan that we are developing through that signing was agreed to by both parties. We will get information and send that to committee in a letter to give them an update on how we are using those dollars to provide affordable and accessible childcare throughout the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Premier, and they are with regard to the Pan-Territorial Vision on Sustainable Development and the Arctic Policy Framework. I don't recall there being any public consultations on the pan-territorial vision. Can the Premier confirm that for me? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. The Honourable Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The three northern Premiers worked together as part of the Northern Premiers Forum to develop this pan-territorial vision. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank the Premier for confirming that there was no public consultation with regard to the development of that statement. I have had a chance to look at it. It is supposed to be about sustainable development. You could actually take the word "sustainable" out and just replace it with "resources." There is nothing in the document, really, with regard to sustainability.

The classic definition of "sustainability" is to make sure that things that we do today do not take away from opportunities for future generations. It is about intergenerational equity. The Premier himself has talked about balancing economy and environment. Why is there nothing in the document about sustainability in the Pan-Territorial Vision on Sustainable Development?

As I said earlier in response to the Member for Yellowknife North's question, the three northern Premiers were very concerned about the report of the Ministerial Special Representative of the Minister of Indigenous Affairs Canada. She was commissioned to consult with stakeholders and governments through the Arctic, and the terms of reference focused primarily on conservation.

When she met with the Premiers, we felt that the request for increased sustainable development was not reflected in the report. We felt that significant work had been done in developing conservation and protected areas. We have significant amounts of parks, and the focus of the report that they worked on was marine protected areas.

We felt it was important to have this Pan-Territorial Vision for Sustainable Development that we felt would balance the report which was going to be used as the centrepiece for the Arctic Policy Framework.

I want to thank the Premier for that. I am certainly more than a bit disappointed to hear that our government has basically rejected the work, then, that was done by the ministerial special representative.

Of course, sustainable development is more than just about resources; it's about people, things like cultural sustainability, Indigenous language and cultural revitalization, social sustainability, recognizing the roles and contributions of business and civil society. Is there going to be some incorporation of these ideas of cultural sustainability, social sustainability, into the NWT chapter of the Arctic Policy Framework?

When the Prime Minister and President Obama announced their parallel moratoriums in the Beaufort Sea, the Prime Minister announced that the fact that, when we raised it, there was no accompanying economic development strategy to deal with the fact that we were being asked to leave billions or trillions of dollars' worth of oil and gas in the ground, there was no accompanying economic development strategy to provide jobs for the people of the Northwest Territories. He said, "Well, don't worry about it, we're going to have a clean growth job strategy, you still have tourism, you have fisheries," and so, that's what our concern was about.

So we thought the Arctic Policy Framework would be focused entirely on jobs and diversifying our economy. The fact that the Member would like to see us in two languages, culture and so on, it was not my understanding how it would work, but if, as I said, if the round tables that we will be hosting where the primary recommendations is that the Arctic Policy Framework should be focused on languages and culture, then we will approach it on that basis.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks to the Premier for that, of course. I'm not suggesting that that be the sole and exclusive focus of the document. I want to make sure that sustainability is incorporated into it. It's offered as genuine input, and I hope that he'll take me up on the offer of including that sort of information and perspectives into the document. It's not just about resource development, and nor should it be.

I have another question for the Minister: is he committed, then, to sharing drafts of the chapters as it is being put together with Regular MLAs and keeping us updated on progress and development of the chapters? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

We had a very good discussion at Inter-Governmental Council, where all the Aboriginal governments that participated and signed in to devolution were very supportive of working together and developing the Arctic Policy Framework. We have committed to holding round tables throughout the North with all of the different stakeholders. Certainly, we will be pleased to share drafts of the documents as we go forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is about the time of year the Standing Committee on Government Operations conducts public hearings with statutory officers who serve an ombudsman-like role over the government. So I'd like to take the opportunity, today, to speak to the Minister of Justice, who is charged with developing ombudsman legislation: where is this proposal? Thank you.

Masi. Minister of Justice.