Thank you, Ms. Haener. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the detailed response. I want to move into early childhood for a moment. I think the Minister is well aware that I have often said that investment in early childhood, and I am talking about ages zero to five, is ultimately where we are going to start to overcome many of the health and well-being issues that we suffer in the territory and improve many of the social outcomes that we currently struggle with, and that this early childhood investment ultimately creates a more productive society and ultimately a better economy. I would just like to start by asking: the early childhood program grants have $98,000 identified. That has been around, it seems like, for a couple of years. Is that just a one-off that goes to one particular organization? Can we get a little bit of information on who is accessing that $90,000? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The early childhood staff grant is actually provided to staff who work at licensed childcare centres. It is provided to supplement their wages. It is provided to them directly, and I believe it's on a quarterly basis that they apply and are fund for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If we move to the next line, we see the early childhood program operator subsidy. We know that this has been long-standing, and this is good. This is a grant to support licensed daycare and day-home operators. I would just like to get a little clarification on this, however. Is this where we have an identified list of operators throughout the entire territory and each one of them gets a particular amount, or is this on a case-by-case application basis? How do we dispense these funds in this line item? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The early childhood program operator subsidy is actually for daycares and family day homes, licensed; licensed daycare centres and licensed family homes. They are application-based for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a fairly significant amount of funds, $4.2 million. Are we seeing a fairly good distribution of these funds throughout the territory? Who is applying? Have we got a little coverage going into small communities, the regional centres as well as Yellowknife? Has this got a good group that is applying to it? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would love to be able to say that this is actually spread out amongst the 33 communities. The reality is that we have 11 small communities that have no licensed daycare at all, so it's not spread out. Any licensed daycare centre or provider knows of this money and should be accessing this money. I don't know why they would not be. It is not available in all of the communities until we can get those 11 communities covered with licensed childcare facilities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Okay. Thank you, and thank you to the Minister for the reply. I appreciate that there are some communities without licensed daycares or day homes at all, and so I appreciate that there would be no applications coming from there, but I am going to assume from your answer that this funding gets distributed to those communities that do. Quickly, just a comment first. Healthy Food for Learning has been pretty stagnant. While it's a significant fund, it has been staying steady at $650,000 for the last number of years, so I am going to recommend that, going forward, you should take a look at increasing that. The cost of food goes up continually. The cost of transporting it goes up continually. Eventually, the program, the actual food, getting access, is chipping away if we are not keeping up with the cost of inflation.

Lastly, because I only have under a couple of minutes here, supporting child inclusion and participation is $1.7 million, and this contributes to target the needs of children who are vulnerable, at risk, or who have specific needs. I would like to know: how is this program going? What is involved in this program, and what kind of, for lack of a better word, uptake, I suppose, is there with regard to us utilizing this program? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Ms. Haener.

Thank you, Ms. Haener. Mr. Vanthuyne.

I had one more. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your indulgence. Okay, I appreciate that, and I am happy to hear that that is going to licensed daycare and day homes. That is where I would rather see it.

Are we doing any long-term observation and monitoring of kids over their lifetimes, or at least into early adulthood? Is there a program of that nature so that we can learn what impacts our investment is having on the benefit, not only for the benefit of the kids themselves, who are receiving the program, but also, hopefully, on the long-term reduction of the public funds? Of all of our early childhood and other programs, are there any programs where we are actually monitoring kids from youth or from infants all the way through to adulthood? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I would like to say that we monitor people right through adulthood, but I am not sure how we would do that. I am open to sitting down and talking about that, though. Currently, what we do now, though, is before children enter school, usually age five, we do the early development instrument, which tests their vulnerabilities in five areas, and then Alberta achievement tests are done annually in grade six and grade nine. We also do a middle years development instrument, and that is done annually in grade four and grade seven, and then, finally, we have a health behaviours in school-aged children, which is done every four years in grade six and grade 10. I do say that after grade 10, though, we don't have any tests at this time that are assessing developmental assets in people. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Cochrane. Next on the list, we have Mr. Simpson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In my last line of questioning, I was talking a lot about the registrar position as being moved to Yellowknife from Hay River, and much of the time was spent by the witnesses talking about how important the position is, and I agree, it is a very important position. I don't agree with the notion that anything that Hay River can do, Yellowknife can do better. I don't think that that is a solution, Mr. Chair, and I will leave it at that for now.

I have questions about the education authority contributions. Later on in the document here, there is some detail. It discusses how many positions are being allocated to each authority, and it discusses how much of that $156 million is going to each authority. The South Slave is going to see an increase of $200,000 in money allocated to it, yet it is going to see a decrease of 10 positions. Can the Minister please explain why the funding is going up, but then the number of positions is going down? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you Mr. Simpson. Minister Cochrane.