Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, we are going through a foundational review that is going to help identify some of the priorities and program services, which we are going to be working on with the Aurora College in regards to education here in the Northwest Territories, but we also have the Aurora Research Institute that hands out research licences every year. On average, it is about 200 licences that are given out. Recently the Aurora Research Institute just completed a new strategic plan, and it focuses on things like research priorities, partnership, knowledge, management...

I just appreciate the Member's comments. As a department, moving forward on these junior kindergarten upgrades and renovations is definitely in the best interest of having a safe school environment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Labour market outcomes in small NWT communities continue to lag. At the beginning of the 18th Legislative Assembly, the Government of the Northwest Territories made a commitment to develop and implement a strategy to increase employment in small communities.

The Small Community Employment Support program provides $4.2 million in GNWT funding to expand employment and training opportunities in small communities. This includes an additional $3 million we agreed to put into the program when the last budget was approved. I want to state for the record, Mr. Speaker, that this...

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

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.

We do currently have an early childhood development action plan within this government, and we're also working on an early learning and childcare agreement with the federal government to look at outlining where our focus is going to be over the next three years.

The Member asks us if we're going to put energy into creating this action plan. We have some documents that we're referring to right now, but a lot of our energy has been working with some of those communities to create daycares. We have two new daycares in two of our smallest communities, and it's a very successful story.

I'm working...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, we are committed to improving the accessibility, affordability, and inclusivity of childcare in the Northwest Territories. It continues to be a priority of our department, as well as a priority of this government. We want to ensure that we support the creation of new childcare spaces and programs in all of our communities across the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, currently we have childcare spaces in 23 of the 33 communities of the Northwest Territories. We need to put our focus, our finances, financial resources into making sure we have childcare...