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.

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...

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...

As I mentioned, we do have a lot of NGOs out in the territory who do great work on behalf of the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned earlier, the NWT SPCA who takes wild, I won’t say wild, but stray dogs from the communities and putting them into their compound but it’s getting filled up, also shelters who are sheltering homeless and people who are battling addictions. In the meantime, while we are creating this policy – obviously there’s a policy coming – can any NGOs apply for funding for infrastructure needs from now until when we see this policy come into the next session? Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just following up on my Member’s statement, a direction was given to the government to create a policy in terms of providing funding to non-government organizations for their infrastructure needs. I will ask the Deputy Premier – who also is the Minister of Education whom this came to, so he’s well versed in this policy that we’re talking about today – has the government undertaken this work to create such a policy that we can fund non-government organizations for the infrastructure they need who do good work on behalf of government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.