Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I can get that information and break it down by region for other Members who want to know how much of the Small Community Employment Fund was actually being utilized in their communities, and I'd be more than willing to share that with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The planning study itself will be in the 2018-2019 O and M budget. That is where you will see it. Thank you.

We're still getting the enrolment rates for junior kindergarten students, so we don't have an exact number. What we did look at, though, was every family was going to be saving anywhere from $8,000 to $12,000 a year, and that's what we've got now, but we don't have the full enrolment rates of junior kindergarten at this time.

Yes, that is correct, Mr. Chair.

With the mandates and the focus of this government to ensure that we do have childcare spaces in all of our communities, before we can even get into universal childcare we've got to make sure that all of our communities do have childcare spaces, and the fact we can actually put our resources that we have now within the remainder of this government to focus on addressing the childcare spaces and needs in 10 more communities across the Northwest Territories while maintaining and sustaining the early childhood programs that currently exist in all of our other communities.

I think that, as a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is my pleasure to recognize and introduce Ms. Ray Solotki, my constituency assistant from Inuvik. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I just want to mention again that, previous to the enhancement of the $3 million into the program, it was at $1.2 million previously and was not being fully utilized. With the increase of that $3 million, my staff is working with the communities to try to promote that program so we can see more success. We are six months into the program with the new funding. I encourage the communities, and even the small communities and the communities that are now eligible, to work on getting applications in to get the employment, as well as to get the training that they need so that they can become part of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and yes, we do go through a budgeting process with O and M, and some decisions are made when moving forward on where we implement our dollars, and this was part of those discussions. Thank you.

As I said, with the increase of $3 million to this program we didn't see that the $1.2 million previously get fully utilized within the small communities. With the new $3 million that was increased to this funding, my staff has been going out and getting that information out to the communities to allow them to understand that they can apply for this funding.

We're working with businesses, Aboriginal governments, and community groups so that they can actually apply on this program. With the enhancements that were made, we looked at expanding eligibility that included the communities; we looked...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; there is $4.2 million in GNWT funding that aims to expand employment as well as training opportunities across the Northwest Territories.

On April 1, 2017, we did make enhancements to encourage success and look at having the program become more successful than it has in the past, and one of those enhancements was expanding eligibility, and that included the communities that I had mentioned earlier this week. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.