Alfred Moses

Yes, the focus on the Small Community Employment Support Program is around employment and training development. We know what it is for, and that is why we worked with committee and Members to enhance that program. We want to see success in this program. That is why we made some enhancements. I will go back to the department and get some more clarity for the Member on some of these policy decisions that were made, and I will get back to the Member on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, there were policy decisions made at the departments that we supported to focus on the success of this program. As I mentioned yesterday in the House, we also have communities that are hurting economically, and we want to make sure that we continue to support all residents across the Northwest Territories. We looked at some of the communities that were ineligible before that we thought we could bring into the eligibility list, and those are the communities that I mentioned in previous answers to the questions.

I do not think this is a disappointment, or the hard work from the rural and remote communities are going down the drain. Actually, it is an enhancement. We have $3 million added to the fund to top it up to $4.2 million. We made enhancements to the Small Community Fund. Like I said, program eligibility, you get more people who can apply on the program, increased benefit levels as well as flexibility for community employers and organizations. At no way do I think this is a disappointment. I think this is something that we should be excited about and promoting. It is focusing on employment, and...

Since the enhancement of the program was in the last budget, we had to look at how we can look at improving the program in many different areas so that we can see success through the Small Community Employment Support Program. It is application-based. We continue to encourage businesses, Aboriginal governments, community organizations, even other governments to work with us to apply on the program so that they can get funding.

Since then, we've also had some consultations in May and June, and those consultations were with Aboriginal governments, communities, leadership, staff, employers...

As I mentioned, our focus is to make sure that we provide those childcare spaces. We have increased subsidies for early childhood programming, specifically on the infant spaces. We are putting more time and energy into making sure that all families in the Northwest Territories have that opportunity in early childhood programs. Subsidies, we made changes to the childcare benefit, the NWT childcare benefit. We are doing a lot of work in the area around early childhood development, and we want to continue to make sure that all of our communities have access to childhood spaces so that our...

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.

Currently, our utilization rates are a little different from the ones the Member presented. We are still waiting for official enrolment rates at the schools, and we are still working with both district education bodies to try to address this space sharing, the space issues that are arising in Yellowknife schools, so we are continuing to work with them to find a solution.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we could have a good discussion about utilization rates here in Yellowknife, where the utilization rates vary from school to school across the community. When we look at our utilization rates, we do assess them by community, and unfortunately here in Yellowknife we do see some schools that have some high utilization rates.

I can let the Member know that there was a review conducted at the schools in May and June with the staff from my department as well as the respective education districts. They walked through the schools, looked at spaces and what the spaces...

Yes, I do. As I mentioned, the economy has taken a downturn; we do have more unemployed people in some of the communities, and I want to make sure that we focus on giving them every opportunity to get employment as well as develop their training and their skills.