The motion's carried. Thank you.

---Carried

Okay, thank you. Moving on to early learning beginning on page 39 with information items on page 41 to 43. Are there any questions? Okay, I have the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, can the Minister please tell me how far along the department is into developing regulations for daycare workers under the $10-a-day program, please. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, can the Member clarify if they're speaking in regards to the wage grid regulations?

Sorry, I'll go back to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, and requirements for -- yes, and -- yes, and the requirements for workers' education, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you. I'm going back to the Member from Great Slave.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. That's a nice shout back to Minister of Justice for more French translating drafters.

I'm curious around specifically, you know, what we're going to be asking of our workforce in the early childhood operator piece, especially around some of the asks for their education. And so does the Minister know when that piece will be out for public engagement in hopefully this year, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will definitely put in a plug for, you know, if anybody has any French translating drafters out there, who are both lawyers and very skilled in the language of French and translations, please come live in the Northwest Territories and make this your home. We have some work for you. But, yes, as soon as we can get that done, that is something that I very much look forward to getting out for engagement and making sure that we can put that new regulation in play. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'll let other Members dive into this one. Thank you.

Is there any further questions from Members? I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So for this -- this budget proposes to create, I think, 75 child care -- new child care spaces, which is a good thing. But what is the total need based on what we know of waitlists across the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, unfortunately, we don't have a master waitlist or a database capable of ensuring that people are only on a waitlist once in the territory. We have anecdotal information from day homes and daycares but unfortunately we know that it's not accurate because having been in the situation myself, I can attest to the fact that as parents, we put our names on multiple lists to ensure that we make it to the top, hopefully, of one of them when we need child care. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Range Lake.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And as a parent with young children in care, and I lost care and needed to find new arrangements, I can tell you it's not easy. And anyone who is still on those lists and does not have care, I have so much sympathy for. You know, it feels like smuggling narcotics, you know, like, flying under the radar to try to get access somewhere because there's so few spaces. So my concern is we can say 75 new spaces across -- you know, and that's great we're creating new spaces, but if the total need is 7500, then this is nothing, right, in the grand scheme of things. So how are we measuring the need in a useful way that we can actually point resources at it? Because if -- again, if the need is exponentially greater than 75, we have a lot more work to do in this area. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'd love to see a day where, you know, people can put themselves on a list, and we have a centralized database that is shared among licensed child care providers. But we simply do not have that type of digital technology within ECE, let alone most of the government at this point in time. I would, for sure, love to see significant investments in digital technology and innovation in that area within the GNWT, but it would take significant investment, and it's one that I simply don't have the dollars for at this time within the department. That being said, I would love to be able to speak a little bit to infrastructure and the fact that we do need physical infrastructure to be able to create those spaces, so work is being done in that realm as well.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.