Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Minister responsible for Public Education, we have to provide the same programs and services to all communities across the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned, I can't look into the future and see where parents are going to put their children in terms of early childhood programming. What we are doing is we are addressing the needs of four-year-olds right across the territory, and we are going to continue to do that.

Providing early childhood quality programs and services throughout the Northwest Territories is a mandate of this government. On October 1, 2016, we made a commitment to all early childhood providers across the Northwest Territories by making changes to our early childhood programs, the way we fund them. I also want to assure to the Member, as well as families with four-year-olds, that JK is an option for families and a choice for families where they want to have their four-year-olds get the early childhood program services that they need.

Yes, those are some of the things that we have been hearing as we were going out doing our consultation, and we will share that detail when we go before standing committee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we do have a draft strategy moving forward that we are going to be sharing with the standing committee on developments. It entails a lot of items, but before we can table it in the House and really submit information, we have to go before a standing committee, and I encourage the Member to come to that presentation when we do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I can't look into the future and say how many students are going to be in early childhood programs throughout Yellowknife and our regional centres. We are dealing with what we need to do today. We want to provide services to all families across the Northwest Territories, give families in Yellowknife, in Hay River, in Inuvik, the same options and opportunities that we have in our small communities by providing quality early childhood programming through junior kindergarten in the schools.

Thank you. Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, colleagues, today I would like to recognize some hard-working and dedicated individuals from across the NWT who provide important advice and guidance to me as Minister responsible for Official Languages. These, of course, are the board members of the Official Languages Board and the Aboriginal Languages Revitalization Board, as well as the Regional Aboriginal Language Coordinators, who are responsible for the implementation of their Aboriginal languages plans. I would like to recognize Official Languages Board Chair Beverly Amos, from my hometown...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 6 on Orders of the Day. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We do understand that the high costs of living here in the Northwest Territories is very problematic, especially in some of our rural and remote communities. We did do a review of the minimum wage. I understand that the Member is referring to a report that talks about the living wage that was done in 2015. We are committed to reviewing the minimum wage. We also made an investment during this budget to work with industry and businesses to help work on our small community employment support program to help create jobs as well as to help subsidize wages for some of our residents that are looking...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I am aware of the living wage movement. We were part of the oversight committee in the last government, when the report was brought forth to this House that resulted in looking at the minimum wage throughout the Northwest Territories. I am very glad to say that, in June of 2015, we increased the minimum wage from $10 to $12.50, and we also made a commitment that we will review that minimum wage every two years. So, Mr. Speaker, I understand where the Member is coming from. We do have the second-highest minimum wage in the country, only aside to Nunavut, but I do...

We don't have some of the statistics that the Member is looking for. We can work with the Aurora College senior management and look at what some of the concerns are that might be coming from our students, as well as maybe some statistics on counselling sessions, sessions that are providing opportunities for life skills training for our students. We can reach out to Aurora College to see if those stats are available and share them with the Member.