Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We -- I've stated before that the increase that is laid out in the contribution agreement is 2.3 percent, and if there are legitimate reasons why a business or a childcare centre needs to increase that, we're happy to have those discussions.

I think that a lot of the concerns that we're hearing are increases of 20 or 30 percent from programs that are already at the top end of what is being charged for childcare. So we are accommodating, but we're not accommodating increases that essentially wipe out a reduction in parent fees. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I'm looking for a bit more of a commitment on -- from the Minister and when he says they're happy to have that conversation. I know the 20, 30 percent number can be complicated. In some cases, it's day homes who haven't raised fees in years, and so they're well below their competitors. And in other cases, I'm hearing from, you know, daycares who recently decided to give their staff a living wage, something that we are hoping to roll out in the coming years with the pay grid, but now they're essentially -- they're taking the step themselves, and they're ahead, and they're concerned that the 2.3 percent is putting them in a position to either roll back the living wage or not sign on to the agreement.

So I guess I'm looking to the Minister for a commitment that exceptions will be made for cases where, you know, a day home hasn't raised fees in years or where, you know, someone has taken the step to already do what we want them do and provide their workers a living wage. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that there is a lot of work to do, and the Minister seems more than willing to have conversations and, you know, find solutions to those exceptions.

I guess I'm hearing from multiple organizations they're getting some conflicting information; they're still not quite sure how much money they will actually get and how it relates to potential fee increases. Some were told on March 24th that if the fee increase happened before end of fiscal before April 1st, that then -- that it wouldn't -- they would not be denied and then later they were told no, no, that 2.3 percent increase still applies.

So I guess I'm looking for clarification from the Minister on is there some sort of deadline of when we're looking backwards at the fee increases and if the day homes or childcare providers are told that if they did it before April 1st, it wasn't going to affect the subsidy, can we honour that commitment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There have been meetings with all the childcare providers, and they have opportunities to ask those questions. You know, these discussions that we're having are great opportunities for us to find out exactly what the issues are and zero in on those.

And so as, you know, the MLAs have brought additional questions and concerns to me, I bring those to the department, and, in turn, the department then brings -- finds ways to answer those for the programs.

So the best thing to do for a program is to sit down with their early childhood consultant and go over those numbers. And it's not a simple process to determine what, you know, they will be getting. So there is some work that needs to be done, and I know that everyone -- or people often want an answer right now, but there's a bit of work to happen, especially given the magnitude of this undertaking. But I encourage everyone to have those conversations with the early childhood consultants. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.