Thank you. Next on my list, I got the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I too would like to raise the minority language education and secondary language instruction, in particular -- or the French -- sorry, the French funding, which is decreasing by -- I believe my calculations around one point -- just shy of $1.5 million. And I understand that's a sunsetting from the French language cooperative agreement. The Northwest Territories is -- has a great reputation and success rate for producing bilingual students through its JK to 12 system. Sorry, I'm getting all my numbers lined -- or my letters and numbers lined up. So -- and this is great. I worked with Canadian Parents for French. I still do. Minority language education, in particular French language education, is an important part of the Canadian identity, and it's great to see our government supporting this. But there's a huge need for bilingual teachers in Canada, and if we're going to be successful in attracting and retaining them, we need to ensure that we have robust financial resources supporting our school divisions to ensure they can attract and retain the talent we need to continue these very successful rates of graduation of bilingual diplomas. So what are we doing to offset the loss in funding from the sunsetting agreement? Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I absolutely agree with the Member. I know that we are both products of being able to be in French language schools in this territory and are able now to pass that on to our own children, which is definitely a privilege and one that I would like for Northerners to be able to continue.

So within that funding, the Member is right. There's a sunset of funding related to the Canada-NWT Cooperation Agreement on minority language education and second official language instruction, and the Member was totally in tune with his math as well. $1.453 million is that sunset, and that was sunset of funding to College Nordique. We're in the process in the department of renegotiating our federal funding agreements for all of our language agreements, and that minority language education is included in that. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So is that anticipated to be restored to the level of support it previously enjoyed? Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'd like to pass to the deputy minister to be able to speak to this. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Awesome, Mr. Chair. That's great news. I wish you the best of luck. And if you need any letters written, I can certainly help out.

I just want to point out with this as well, often when there is an announcement around minority language funding for French languages, for French language education in the Northwest Territories or other programming, there seems to be a tug-of-war between Indigenous language funding and in a sense that Indigenous languages are being left out of that, but these are completely separate programs and separate funding streams. And I think it's really important we support all of our official languages to the best of our ability. And if there's cash out there, we should be trying to get it and invest in all of our languages. It just happens to be a lot of federal support for French language funding, and I think what all minority language groups have in common is that they are minority language groups and we can -- they can find ways to support each other, especially if they're properly funded. So I really do support minority language education, and I hope this -- we continue to see success in this area of education.

I have other -- Members have already spoken about other concerns I have around education. The one thing I will add is can the Minister just update this House on how the STIP day -- or the STIP program is working. I know as a parent with children in various grades that the increasing number of days off on the calendar often will create a lot of strain on just the availability of time for parents to, like, manage their schedule. So it seems like these calendar days continue to increase. I know that this was a way to offset costs and continue to support teachers so there's fewer burnouts and we continue to make the North a good place for teachers to work. And and I know we continue to pay them, I think, the highest in Canada, which is all very good. But I know parents I talk to and, you know, one of those parents is my wife, can often be frustrated when there's another day, another week, where oh, you know, we missed it, something wasn't communicated, and now we have to make arrangements that we didn't anticipate. So how is that program going? Are instructional -- do we have enough instructional hours? What's the feedback been like so far? Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, absolutely I hear the Member that, you know, understanding where your children are when you're at work and that they're cared for and managing that is incredibly important. You know, we just talked about child care for sure, and so I hear the Member on that one.

Mr. Chair, right now -- well sorry, in the previous Assembly, it was expected that there would be a statutory review of the STIP days. That evaluation was deferred indefinitely at that time. It was originally deferred because of COVID. There just wasn't the amount of hours required in order to review that. And then beyond that, there just hadn't really been what was considered kind of a normal school year. I would say as far as how it's going, it really depends on who you talk to. So if you talk to the teachers, they definitely appreciate the added time in order to serve the purpose of providing them with day-to-day time in order to do things like report cards. If you talk to parents, of course, it is definitely more of a challenge.

How education bodies have decided to manage that time has definitely been up to each of them. For example, there's an education body here in Yellowknife who has chosen to attach that to Thursday afternoons in order for parents to have that consistency of time. It has also meant that that particular education body has stepped away from PD days and being able to use those Thursday afternoons for that purpose. And I know that there are other school boards who have done the same. And so it really depends on who you talk to. And as we know, with limited options for child care it does become a challenge for parents for sure. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for that response. Are we going to undertake that review? Like, I understand it's been deferred indefinitely, but now that we're not in emergency circumstances and we do have time, is this an area the Minister thinks is worthwhile to reevaluate? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, STIP feedback still comes forward ad hoc through different evaluation parameters from education bodies and from open communication with education bodies, and then beyond that calendars are still developed to meet legislative requirements, for example for instructional hours, and then, of course, we have the collective agreement parameters for a number of teacher workdays and stuff like that. And if -- but, yes -- sorry, I've been passed a note. Yes, we can consider doing that as well. But I'd be curious to know -- I feel like the Member has another ask and so I'll pass back to him. Because I'm curious as to where he will go with that.

Thank you. I'll go to the deputy minister.

To the Member from Range Lake.

Yeah, thank you. Well, just do it. So in the -- I mean, I was part of the -- I was one of the MLAs who passed the statutory review, so I think it's important to do it. I think one thing we learned from COVID is when kids are out of class, education results suffer. All the evidence, all the science is showing us that, that -- if I could have, like, ten more seconds just to conclude my thought -- but, like, that is where the science is showing us that when you pull kids out of the classroom, academics suffer. And they still have not recovered from all that time that was lost during the pandemic. So I am extremely skeptic that more time out of the classroom is going to be useful, so I would strongly encourage the statutory review to be put -- to come back and for it to be implemented within the life of this government. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Any further questions on items pages 46 to 48? Any Members? Okay, I don't see no further questions, please turn to page 45.

Education, Culture and Employment, education, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $236,524,000. Does the committee agree?