Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the most courageous and positive proposals in the road map is the creation of a managed alcohol program. Of course, implementation of this proposal will require healthcare professionals who are very knowledgeable about harm reduction. Is the Minister prepared to do the pilot project that the road map suggests? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Minister could tell us whether he is looking at contracting a nonprofit to deliver the services of the sobering centre or whether that will be done by departmental staff? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, some of the priorities in the action plan which are Health and Social Services priorities include the development of a sobering centre. Could the Minister tell us how and when priorities such as those, that come under his department, will be funded? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I know the Minister was at the launch of the Downtown Road Map report last week and that he's been a supporter of its development. It's my understanding that the investment in services for intoxicated people falls to his department. Could the Minister confirm that the 11 priorities in the report are his priorities? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize the staff of the Status of Women Council of the NWT. They are Samantha Thomas, Lorraine Phaneuf, the executive director, and Annemieke Mulders, and I'd like to welcome them to the House today.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, those of us who live downtown in Yellowknife have witnessed how dramatically it's changed in the last few years. I've received numerous complaints from residents who find the downtown a more challenging place to live because of a growing population of people who are homeless and/or intoxicated. According to a City of Yellowknife report, the use of emergency shelters increased 14 per cent in just one year, 2015. The RCMP decision not to take intoxicated people into custody just because they are intoxicated has produced a 30 per cent increase in ambulance rides and swamped Stanton Hospital's emergency department.

Mr. Speaker, the good news is that all orders of government have come together to provide a comprehensive and coordinated response to the needs of the street people in my riding. Instead of continuing to respond to the issues on an ad hoc basis, there is now a plan for downtown Yellowknife. I want to thank the working group that produced that road map under the leadership of Mayor Mark Heyck. They've developed a suite of short, medium, and long-term actions that give me hope that downtown will be changed for the better of all of us.

Mr. Speaker, the changes proposed in this report begin with embracing the concept of harm reduction. Instead of marginalizing people who are homeless and/or intoxicated, the road map will provide services that recognize and respond to their complex needs. Once fully implemented, we will have 15 semi-independent living units in emergency shelters and they'll be available to clients 24 hours a day; we'll have central intake for people who need help with housing, mental health, and addictions issues; we'll have a street outreach program that will identify and assist people who are intoxicated and take them to a new safe place to sober up.

These interventions will not only help the people they are intended to serve but will also take the pressure off first responders, whose services are needed by all of us, not just the street people. We've gone from being baffled by the problem to embracing it, and that's a tremendous accomplishment. Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that investment in prevention pays off. The investment required to implement the plan is relatively modest, in the order of a million dollars a year. Stack that against the social, human, and economic cost to citizens in the community and the decision to invest is simply the right thing to do. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is no question among the people on this side of the House that money invested in early childhood development yields fantastic returns. We want people to have good school readiness, to graduate from high school, to attain the skills they need to realize their full potential, whatever that looks like for them. We want them to have as many opportunities as possible.

Mr. Speaker, junior kindergarten is not the only way to achieve this goal. There are other ways, and I've mentioned some of them. Aboriginal Head Start is one that has a proven track record and is offered free of charge, so it makes no sense whatever to replace it. I think it's worth reminding the Minister that consultation means that not only are you listening, but you're willing to change the outcome, and so I recommend that the Minister consider whether, in fact, all 49 schools need the same thing, or whether only some of them need the program that he's offering.

I'd like to draw the attention of the Minister to the comments on this side about the need for adequate funding for school boards and district education authorities who are taking on a whole new year of education programming. I've already heard stories about a lack of resources in the schools that are limiting extra-curricular activities, and I think it would be a crying shame to do that at the expense, to have the older children pay for JK, so to speak, to have it at their expense.

I would like to echo my colleague Mr. Nadli's recommendation that we find a way for cooperation and coexistence. That is what I would like to see. I would like to thank all my colleagues who have spoken in support of this motion and request a recorded vote. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this motion is not about the value of providing early childhood education to four-year-olds in the Northwest Territories, that is value that we all agree on. Research has shown time and again that investing in the development of preschoolers yields good results for them, not only in terms of school readiness, but in school achievement and in fact in life-long learning.

This motion is about rollout of the program. The rollout of the program, Phase 1, was reviewed independently, and that report was tabled in this House in February. The report included a number of recommendations, and they are not numerous, there are about five of them. The one that I wanted to speak to is accommodating existing programs. Some communities have no choice for early childhood development other than junior kindergarten, and it also turns out that many of those communities that have no choice have the greatest need for it. So it makes sense to have junior kindergarten in those communities.

Some communities, like Yellowknife, have many choices and the implementation of junior kindergarten shouldn't fetter those choices. So I'm talking here about Aboriginal Head Start in Ndilo, about the Montessori School, and about daycares, all very different kinds of programs and all with different educational goals and attainments. It's worth noting of course that Aboriginal Head Start both, here and in Yellowknife and in the other seven communities where it's offered as a free program. Other programs cost money. I recognize that some parents struggle to pay that money, but they make the choice because they are committed to the philosophy of the program that's being offered.

So what I'm trying to point to here, Mr. Speaker, is that there is a different context in each community for the education and development of four-year-olds, different needs for oversight, staffing, costs and curriculum. So for that reason, I really believe that there needs to be a nuanced approach to the introduction of junior kindergarten that takes into account the different contexts in different communities, whether they have Aboriginal Head Start which, as I say, exists in eight communities, or whether they have Montessori, which is unique to Yellowknife.

I know that the department has introduced some new rates for daycares, and certainly that is a very welcome development. It's important to note that it doesn't cover the differences between programs that are currently geared to zero to three-year-olds and programs that are geared for three to five-year-olds. So these are two different kinds of programs with different requirements for staffing, for equipment, for curriculum and so on.

It's also worth noting, and this is important in the context of junior kindergarten, that these rates are only paid when children attend. It's not like school where the schools are funded whether the children attend or not. Daycare and early childhood development programs, the subsidies are only paid when the children attend.

So in the case of Aboriginal Head Start, for example, if the children stop attending Aboriginal Head Start, which is a free program, and they start attending junior kindergarten, which is a free program, then certainly junior kindergarten will be disadvantaged because they will not receive the subsidy because the children aren't attending.

There are issues as well which my colleague, Mr. Blake, has spoken about very eloquently about how junior kindergarten is provided by teachers and other programs such as Aboriginal Head Start and daycare are provided by early childhood education workers, and they generally tend to be workers from the community who have achieved their degree or diploma in this area and are qualified to work with children at this age on their development issues, but it's important to know they're not teachers. So, as a result, what I can foresee, is what my colleague has spoken about is that early childhood workers will be out of work because their programs will be taken over by teachers. This removes the program from the community from its cultural context, from its parental oversight and so on.

School is definitely a completely different proposition in terms of the way it's delivered than early childhood development is.

I want to talk a little bit about implementation. The government told us: first, that the program would go into all 49 schools; and, second, that it would be introduced in September of 2017, but they haven't yet produced the implementation plan and a budget for what it will cost. So I feel that the government has put the cart before the horse, they have limited the options for tailoring the implementation of this program by saying already where and when it will be introduced.

So coming up with a plan that is nuanced to the individual needs of the communities and the needs of children who need improvement on the early development instrument, those need to be taken into account, and there should be a real focus on assessing the need for school readiness and meeting that where it is demonstrated to exist.

The greatest fear, I guess, is that what this junior kindergarten program will do is that while opening options to some parents, it will limit options for others. I don't see that as a good trade-off. I think that there should be a way to accommodate both kinds of programs in our communities. Those are my comments, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Whereas the Department of Education, Culture and Employment confirmed plans to introduce junior kindergarten in all 49 NWT schools in the fall of 2017;

AND WHEREAS the goal of junior kindergarten is to promote the development and school readiness of four year olds with free programming;

AND WHEREAS, the importance of early childhood development is a value shared by professional and licensed programs across the territory;

AND WHEREAS, early development instrument testing reveals the greatest need for readiness exists in our smallest communities and these communities often have the fewest resources for preschoolers;

AND WHEREAS, the GNWT tabled report in February that reviewed the first stage of

implementation of junior kindergarten in 19 NWT schools;

AND WHEREAS this report recommended that expanded implementation of junior kindergarten must take into account community context, strengths, needs and the existence of quality early childhood learning programs in communities;

AND WHEREAS this report also recommends the government develop a strategy in consultation with each community to address its unique early childhood learning needs;

AND WHEREAS implementation of Junior Kindergarten will jeopardize existing programs by removing four-year-olds from their programs;

NOW THEREFORE I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment produce a plan to implement junior kindergarten in 2017/2018 along with a fully-costed budget for presentation to the Standing Committee on Social Development;

AND FURTHER that the department implement all the recommendations of the junior kindergarten review tabled in February;

AND FURTHERMORE that in developing an implementation plan the department acknowledge that a one-size-fits-all approach to junior kindergarten is contrary to the report's recommendations;

AND FURTHERMORE that the department tailor the introduction of junior kindergarten to each community with a focus on providing the greatest need to improve school readiness;

AND FURTHERMORE that the department accommodate existing community programs for four-year-olds without jeopardizing their viability;

AND FURTHERMORE that the government provide a comprehensive response to this motion within 120 days.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.