Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I, too, am really looking forward to seeing changes within public housing happen so that people can take advantage of being a licensed day home provider from within public housing. I find it troubling to know that we tell parents, "You can raise your child in this home, but it's not good enough for you to generate an income from the same environment." I really struggle with that because I think that, largely, that is pointed towards women, who are predominantly the caregiver in a home, and it prevents them from being able to take advantage of some really healthy subsidies that are available to people who choose to open and operate licensed day homes. I do really encourage the Minister to work on that with the Minister of housing because I think that is a great way to increase employment in small communities, for starters, and to open up some much-needed day home spaces and daycare spaces.

Last year, when we sat and did this exact same process, we talked about the different policies within ECE that were frustrating to some day home providers. Some of those were, for example -- sorry, even after school care is a great example, where you can have students in the same school, and they go down to the gym, and all of a sudden the numbers are different. There were a number of policies that we spoke of, and the Minister had shown an interest in changing some of those policies and updating them to provide more flexibility with childcare providers. I am just wondering what the status of those updates is. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. If I recall correctly, and it's been a while, I think some of those were around safety. A lot of the regulations are in relation to safety. I looked into what other jurisdictions do, and we are not overregulated in terms of safety. We are pretty much on par with other jurisdictions in Canada, so it would hard for me to justify pulling back any of those safety regulations. That is not the answer the Member wants to hear, I imagine, but it's the answer that we came up with. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. No, I would never want you to compromise safety of a child, for sure. I struggle to understand why a child is safe when there is a teacher in the room, and then the teacher becomes an after school care provider and then that room is no longer safe. I think that is where my confusion on the safety point comes from. One of the questions I have is that the early learning and childcare section used to be tied in with the junior kindergarten to grade 12 section, and I am wondering if this is solely a budgetary change or if there was change that also happened within the department physically, as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. It is just a reorganization on paper, essentially. It is a significant item, significant enough to be on its own, and so that is why it was separated. There was a lot of that at the department this year. There was a lot of cleaning up, and so that is why there are things in places where they did not used to be and numbers that are different and all of that. I am sure it was a lot of fun for the researchers to go through and try to reconcile that, as it was for our staff to do the work in the first place. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It would not be fair if I did not talk about universal childcare in this section. One of the questions that I have for the Minister is: is there an intent to this fiscal year to produce a cost plan for this Assembly? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. I see the Premier looking back at me like, "You had better say yes."

---Laughter

The federal government has shown an interest in creating some kind of childcare model, a national childcare model, potentially something that is similar to Quebec's model, let's say. That is a highly subsidized model, and so I think that we should probably see what we can get out of the federal government at this point and see if we can strike while the iron is hot. I asked the department to look into different options. There will be costs tied to those different options. That is not to say that that would be our plan, but it is a plan that perhaps we can pursue with federal support. We are looking at all options right now. The territory is very unique. There are different barriers in different communities, and so we do not have a one-size-fits-all plan at this point. We do need to come up with a plan that suits all of our communities, and we plan to do that work. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. No, I appreciate that, and I would assume that the federal government might have questions about, if they decided to work with the NWT on it, how much they would potentially be needing to spend. I think it would be important to make sure we are ready for that conversation because I am all about spending the federal money versus our own, for sure. The next thing I would like to talk about is the COVID relief money that was set aside for early learning and childcare, and I am wondering how much of the COVID relief dollars are still available to childcare operators in the NWT. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. I just confirmed with the Member that our 2030 Early Learning Childcare Strategy will be done by the end of the year. I expect a lot of the work will be done much sooner than that, and I am happy to keep committee abreast of that situation. I will be handing this over to Mr. Shannon to explain how much money we have spent and how much money we have. I think he might be ready now. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Shannon.

Thank you, Mr. Shannon. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Is the intent that that money needs to be spent before the 2021-2022 fiscal year, or if there is still money in that bucket come April 1^st, are day homes still able to take advantage of that come that time? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you. The money was approved for this fiscal year, and when this money was approved, we were giving our best estimates. If we estimated too high, it means that we did not run out of money, but it means that there will be money at the end that lapses. It's not a case where it's federal money and we have to get it all out the door. It is GNWT money. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much. I am wondering, if that money is not fully subscribed and again that it is GNWT money, if I understood that correctly, the way that that money is delivered to day homes, is there movement in that? Thank you very much.