Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is funding, I believe, the Norman Wells Land Corporation, and they're providing programs in Norman Wells. We have had proposals from day homes. However, none of the day homes have met the standards that we can supply funding for. But the Norman Wells Land Corporation is getting funding and we are open and consulting with the community to try to open up the daycare in Norman Wells again and provided them with the options for funding, for rent, mortgage, food, all those types of expenses. We'd like to continue to work with the community and the residents of...

The department is happy to release this report so that all residents of the Northwest Territories can see where our actions are and what our priorities are. That report will be released next month. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the department has a lot of programs in place to ensure that our graduates that leave high school do get into the workforce. The main one that we do have is we do have a 10-year strategic framework called the Skills 4 Success. We are looking at developing a concrete action plan to address those that will help improve employment success for NWT residents, and also close that skills gap for our employers and our residents that are looking for work, and help adjust some of those individuals from ages 18 to 24 that are not in the workforce, they're just out of school...

Yes, the department is committed to working with the Hay River DEA and the Commission scolaire. We did have a meeting earlier this year with the Commission scolaire, as well as we sent letters out to their staff. We will be sending letters out, as well, to the families that have sent letters to the department, and we do have a meeting set up with the Hay River DEA in the near future to discuss some of these concerns that are brought up from the community of Hay River.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I begin, I'd just like to thank all the parents and families who have written letters to the department in regards to concerns with the French first language education programs and enrolment of students. The ministerial directive has been in place since 2008, and I have communicated with the Commission scolaire that I have directed the department to do a review and look to see if any changes should be considered. Hopefully those will be done before the next school year begins. Thank you.

As I mentioned earlier, in 2015 we had consultants go into the community, meet with community members, and give them the options in terms of how to start up a licensed daycare, the funding that is available to the community. Unfortunately, community members after the consultations decided not to go ahead with the daycare. However, as the Member asked, there is start-up funding as well as program contributions should the community want to move ahead with the project that could total in the amount of, through our programs within the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment, about $89,000...

I would like to take the opportunity to welcome Mr. William Greenland, a man of many talents and also my cousin.

---Laughter

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Committee Report 27-17(5) be received and adopted by this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This week is Fire Prevention Week. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize this year’s NWT Fire Service Merit Award recipient, Inuvik’s fire chief, Jim Sawkins. Chief Sawkins has been a firefighter for the past 35 years, with the past 15 as fire chief. He has been a fire chief for the Town of Inuvik for the past four years and, through his experience, has provided the volunteer fire department with a great training ground and sense of professionalism.

Chief Sawkins is actively involved with various territorial committees. He’s the president of the NWT Fire...

On many occasions as I chaired this committee, Members and individual Members said, “We need to keep on going.” A lot of times there were very huge documents, 20, 30 pages, eight o’clock at night, working through the late hours just to make sure that we got the work done for people of the Northwest Territories.

Just to highlight a few: the Anti-Poverty Strategy, the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, Education Renewal and Innovation. A lot of pressure and effort was put on the Department of Education to work on that. A huge one: Early Childhood Development; and also some very significant...