Alfred Moses

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to follow up on a couple of things in terms of recruitment and retention as well.

Yesterday the Minister stated, I believe, that it takes about six to eight weeks for when a job that’s available to the general public closes to the hiring process. So about a month and a half to two months before someone can get a job within government. I know we’ve got to go through the interview process and all the areas to make sure that this individual is qualified and ready for the job; however, that seems like a long turnover time for when I put my application in to get a job...

The reason I ask if they look at priority regions and communities is if we put this back in this formula funding that we’ve been using since 2007, that means all regions would get a share of the pie, I guess, and it’s based on enrolments. You might have a region or a community that might not have high enrolments in daycares when this Junior Kindergarten came into effect, because now we’re getting more people out of the daycares, so it’s definitely affecting enrolments, so I’m glad that he’s doing that.

One area that I want to touch on with the daycares is these inspections. There was a news...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to follow up with questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment as well. When we talk about educating and getting our residents out into the real world with a quality education, it’s all got to start somewhere and where that starts is with early childhood development. Specifically with licenced daycare organizations that we work with, this government funds licenced daycares.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, when was the funding policy on how we fund licenced daycares last reviewed? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As much as I’d like to do a rebuttal to the Member’s statement, and the importance… Actually, I will.

This government is focused on increasing the health and the wellness of people across the Northwest Territories. As a fact, increasing our economy, increasing our skill force, increasing our education and our health care systems in the regions through the Northwest Territories, and I believe this government’s been doing a great job in decentralizing the jobs in the communities, bringing families to communities. In Inuvik alone I know that the opening of a couple offices...

Just more of kind of like an education awareness little dialogue here. It’s good to know, because we do, as Members, get approached by a lot of NGOs about core funding, about operations, about salaries, things of that nature. So in terms of how it’s being developed, I know looking at the avenues moving forward. Just more of a comment and I’m glad to see that this department has increased the forced growth for these two organizations, because as NGOs it is pretty tough to do business out there sometimes. I’m glad to see that this department has taken that initiative and worked with these two...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple of comments. First of all, the contribution of dollars going into the Indspire Awards. I think it’s a very beneficial program and one way that this government supports non-government organizations that recognizes our Aboriginal Northerners that are doing great work in the North and even across the country. We have had some Northerners that were recognized under this program.

Also, I just want to acknowledge the ongoing support for the Women’s Advisory, which we just witnessed here last week with the Campaign School. I think that was something that this...

Will those recommendations in a report come before standing committee so that the department and these several working groups that we have throughout the Northwest Territories are held accountable for the work that they do? It seems like there are a lot of working groups out there trying to do the same thing and I think Members sitting at this table have given some good recommendations already.

Thanks, Madam Chair. In terms of streamlining the appeals process, there were a couple that were referred to but I wasn’t given specific details on. How long is the appeals process now and how do you streamline an appeals process? How do you streamline an appeals process and currently how long is that right now?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the last two years our population has decreased, and if it wasn’t for births and some of the people moving in, it would have a drastic effect on us. In the small communities it’s having a drastic effect on licenced daycare facilities.

I’d like to ask the Minister, are there any other subsidies that some of our daycares can access that will help them keep the doors open, keep the lights on and provide a service for our families, our parents in the communities?

That brings up concerns. So, over the last eight years we’ve been following a policy for the way we fund our daycares the same way, and in that time, whether the funding pot that we’ve had, we’ve also had an increase in daycare operators throughout the Northwest Territories. I see that in the budget address there’s $1.12 million that’s being allocated to early childhood to improve childhood outcomes. A lot of that money is going into wages and training.

I’d like to ask the Minister, when he’s looking at putting those out into the communities, can he take a look at where we have the highest cost...