Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In some cases, yes, it can be used for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is ongoing funding from JK to 12, as I had mentioned earlier, and every year, it is going to change based on enrolments from school to school, authority to authority. I will ask my assistant deputy minister, Olin Lovely, to maybe get into a little bit more detail. Thank you.

Currently, the department supports a wide variety of events and programs that focus on our Indigenous cultures, languages, traditions, arts. To that, I can think right off the top of my head are the Great Northern Arts Festival, also the Metis Cultural Days that are in Hay River. Right across the parking lot here at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, we do that through exhibits and events throughout the year. We have over about 60,000 visits to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre on a yearly basis. We also continue to support heritage fairs in the schools, among many other...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That $881,000 for inclusive schooling that we had mentioned, when we did put the funding out there for junior kindergarten for funding, we did not get full enrolments of all grades, so there was a surplus of money for that money that the Finance Minister had brought in the last budget. Because we did not get full enrolments in junior kindergarten, that surplus from that money that reallocated for JK, we are using to reallocate internally to fund inclusive schooling. I will go to Mr. Lovely for a bit more clarification. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned earlier, the scholarship is fully utilized. That is a good thing, that we are actually getting residents out there taking the Early Childhood Development Program. Yes, we can look into evaluating how many of our students actually take the program and get to do some work, either in the JK classroom or in a daycare in the community. Yes, we can try to get that information collected. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the arts organizations operating funding, that is a lot for the O and M side of things with the organizations. The support to northern performers, again, let's take Western Arctic Moving Pictures, for example. We fund their operations, but we also fund them to go out and do the travel. Support to northern performers supports cultural delegations to things like Arctic Winter Games, Minister's Culture and Heritage Circle, international festivals, and NWT Days that we have had in the past in Ottawa, as well as things like the Circumpolar Games. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can confirm with the Member that it is entirely from the lapse, the funding. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The event that the Member was mentioning in his statement was a gathering that took place in 2017. At that time, the department did sponsor the Inuvialuit drummers and dancers to attend the event. We do support artists and northern performers as well as cultural delegates through funding programs. As you know, we do have a pot of funding and that, if anyone wants to look at attending the event, they get their applications into the department sooner than later before the end of the fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you look at the program detail under schools, it is coming out of that line item. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That would be the plan and the priority, to keep our early childhood workers here, as we are looking forward to sustaining our daycares and our day homes right now as well as our investments in the communities that do not have daycares. Thank you.