Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In cases such as the one the Member brought forward, I'd encourage the Member to set up a meeting with our CSO at the office. Any families that find themselves in that situation obviously want to provide the best overall supports to the families so that they do see this benefit, but in any cases as the Member has stated, I'd like to encourage the Member to talk to the families or even have the YWCA to explain to their families, come talk to us at the department, speak with the CSO on how this can be addressed, and I'm sure we can find a solution. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I know we've heard those concerns of the implementation of junior kindergarten; the impacts it will have on daycares, day homes, in particular on this question Aboriginal Head Start. We have consulted and we have engaged with the eight Aboriginal Head Start staff and managers. We have been meeting with them on a regular basis. On August 24th we had the Public Health Agency of Canada come and speak with the managers as well and inform them that funding will not be affected going forward with the implementation of junior kindergarten. It is in our mandate to provide early childhood programs...

As mentioned, in 2015 a framework was tabled in this House. As we're going out to develop the action plan we do want to continue to get support from our stakeholders, Aboriginal governments, societies that are out there that focus on culture and heritage, as well as our residents of the Northwest Territories who provide that knowledge and experience of where we need to put our focus as well. As I mentioned, we have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories; we want to make sure that all priorities, all areas in terms of culture and heritage are met for the communities, for the Aboriginal...

In 2015, the government of the day tabled a Culture and Heritage Framework. Right now, we're working with all departments to develop an action plan that we will present to the House, and that will focus on some of the priorities. Also looking at all 33 communities and also looking at some of the land claims that are out there in terms of culture and heritage throughout the Northwest Territories here, we're taking the lead, the department is taking the lead in developing that action plan, and we should have something hopefully in the new year brought before committee and before Cabinet and then...

First of all, I just want to thank all the organizations that do set up food banks and provide services in our communities, even our smallest communities. As the Member has said, without their help, we wouldn't be able to get some of these other families that might fall off income assistance based on some of the, I guess, regulations that we impose for people that want to take down income assistance.

But we are doing our job, Mr. Speaker. The changes that we just made to the income assistance and the Canada Child Benefit, as I mentioned earlier, families are going to get an increase of up to...

I believe in 2015-2016 we had about just over $18 million on income assistance that this government provided. In 2016-2017, it went over $20 million, and the odd time we come back to this House asking for a supplementary appropriation. As everybody knows, the economy is in a downturn, so we are seeing more families on income assistance in some of the regions, and from time to time we will come back to the House to seek a supplementary appropriation to provide income assistance to those that are in need.

There are a lot of things that we take into consideration; how big the family is, the net...

The numbers that I have stated that the school in question is at 79 per cent, so we'll have to follow up with the superintendent and have our staff speak with the superintendent to make sure which numbers are correct. The numbers before me are 79, and if we are at 90 per cent and we are over utilization capacity, then we'll have to speak with the school board.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great honour and pleasure to welcome my father, Mr. Winston John Moses, joining us here today. Both he and my mom, Martha, are avid watchers, they rarely miss a -- I want to say an episode -- but a day in the House in sitting when they're watching on TV. I'm glad that he could be here joining us today and taking in the proceedings. So welcome, dad. Thanks.

That's exactly what we're doing with this survey. As I mentioned in this House during this session. We also got a motion that as passed earlier in the week supporting the roll outs of a junior kindergarten and making sure that those surveys that addressed the concerns that are brought forward will be meeting the needs of the school, and we're having our engagements with the schools and the communities to ensure that they have the resources needed to implement junior kindergarten.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and we did see the concerns in the press earlier this week. I can inform the Member that we do have two schools that fall under the Yellowknife Catholic School Boards that offer programs from kindergarten to Grade eight. The school in particular that he's mentioning does have a utilization rate of 79 per cent and at 85 per cent then we start looking at extensions as well as renovations. Now, the other school that they have has a capacity rate of 58 per cent.

We will have conversations with the superintendent how to address those concerns from the Yellowknife Catholic...