Alfred Moses

Thank you. A couple of years ago, this government contributed funding to the Children First Centre in Inuvik to early childhood development and to give these children a place to learn and to be educated. Then two years later we say we’re taking all the four-year-olds out, possibly.

Would the Minister be looking at creating some type of provision within the Junior Kindergarten program where the funding that goes to the district education authorities be flowed through to the daycares and the daycares get the funding so they open up spots for people in the community with children who are four...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just going to follow up with some questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on my Member’s statement today. I’d just like to ask the Minister, seeing as it’s our first year of the Junior Kindergarten program and next year we’re going to be going into phase two where we’re going to be taking the Junior Kindergarten program into some of the regional centres such as Inuvik, I’d like to ask the Minister has he consulted with the DEAs and the DECs as well as other private daycare facilities and businesses on how this Junior Kindergarten program is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re embarking on a big project this fall and it’s the first phase of our Junior Kindergarten. Twenty-three communities will be taking it on, and as the Minister stated, it is optional to all those schools who want to do the Junior Kindergarten program. I understand the importance of this, getting our four-year-olds ready for kindergarten, getting them into the schools; however, there are still a lot of issues that have come to the forefront as we brought this program into the schools in 23 communities. We were not sure if the schools were ready, if the staff were...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the four-year-olds go into the school system and educators who went to school to be educators now take on an extra responsibility for these four-year-olds, has the Minister created some type of training program, looked at supports that are needed for these educators? Has he approached the kindergarten educators and given them the support they need, the training that they need and the materials that they need to ensure that this Junior Kindergarten program is successful, stuff that daycares have? Thank you.

The workshops sound great to the daycares. Members, committees have heard about all the good work that would come out of Junior Kindergarten. We heard all the statistics and research. What I’m trying to get at here is whether or not the daycares have expressed concern that when we incorporate Junior Kindergarten to the regional centres that there’s going to be all the four-year-olds moving into the schools, which would result in lost revenue for the daycares. It’s not only going to happen in Inuvik, it’s going to happen in all the communities that have daycares. It’s going to happen here in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a former resident of Inuvik, Ms. Alyssa Carpenter, whose family made a big contribution to the community of Inuvik before they moved and resided here in Yellowknife. I just want to wish her best of luck in her studies and welcome her to the House and welcome everybody here to today’s proceedings. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There is a concern because I know there were a lot of non-government organizations who were looking at this House when we actually approved a non-government organization for the infrastructure needs. It’s taken over two years to get this policy in place.

Is there any opportunity to speed up the process so it comes to committee… Or can I ask the Minister, with the draft policy that he’s working on, can that policy be given to committee to give any input right now to speed up the process? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Early on in this government, Members of the Assembly had a pretty good debate on an issue in terms of infrastructure. This government funded a non-government organization a certain amount of money to help with the construction of that building, and actually that building that was developed is actually working in the sense that it’s one of the focuses of our priorities, which is early childhood development. Obviously, that didn’t go well with some Members, but it was a really good debate, and at the end of the day, this government put forward money so an NGO could build...

No, nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I get into some of the areas that a lot of Members have touched on, the department has come before committee and we’ve had a lot of good discussion there as well. Over the length of this Assembly, I want to applaud the department for all the good work that’s going on and good initiatives, changing policies and also looking at the infrastructure investments going into communities. Not only new units but there are a lot of retrofits. We are really fixing up some of the housing units that Members do hear concerns on. That’s good to hear.

Just looking at the project...