Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We eagerly anticipate the release of the Anti-Poverty Action Plan and the Early Childhood Development Framework and look forward to seeing how this government puts these documents into action. I propose that we insert a few pages based on what Quebec has implemented over the last 15 years.
Since the late ‘90s, Quebec has made daycare available to all for $7 per day. The price is the same regardless whether you are rich or poor. The daycares are run by professionals who are trained in early childhood development and education. The results have been excellent. Including...
Thanks for that information. The Yellowknife one sounds like… Is that in the past? Are we changing our standards in runway construction in recognition of the new challenges?
Thanks to the Minister. So that’s the only airport that this has expressed itself in that way this year, I’m assuming, unless there’s any further update. What are we doing to try to assess airports for vulnerability to this sort of thing, so that we can again try to get ahead of the game? It comes to mind now that Hay River had an issue, and again there’s a clear trend development here and we know it’s going to get worse. What are we doing to try to get ahead of this and what sorts of costs are we seeing now?
I was talking about the Sahtu generally, of course. I sort of agree that we expect the regional hub to be good for the short term here. It’s the smaller airports that I’m wondering about and if they’re seeing any kind of magnitude-increase in activity. I know Tulita, a beautiful spot, but it’s a pretty modest facility there and so on.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, I’ve been bringing this up for seven years now. Just a little bit on the history. The original construction of the Detah road was very shaky and I know the department is aware of this. It was actually thrown in very quickly at the recommendation of the member of the royalty that had visited Detah during the springtime during the breakup and ended up having a harrowing dog team ride across the deteriorating ice. So he was motivated to lobby very hard and, successfully, this road was put in, but it was put in without much planning or engineering and so on...
Thanks to the Minister for that. I guess I would appreciate it. I know that discussion with Mr. Yakeleya was interesting and appropriate here. I would like to expand that to the NWT, and obviously I’m very interested in Detah and Ndilo, as well as Yellowknife and so on.
Could we also get what the plan is for new child care facilities at the same time when the Minister provides that information? I understand that inspections are on their way now, but as soon as that’s available, if we can get the plan perhaps brought to committee or some sort of commitment there in the near future. Obviously...
Yeah, baloney, Mr. Chair, to the Minister. That’s absolute baloney. We can move dollars around.
The Minister and his staff so far have used three years, four years and five years for this project, depending on what they find with different things, studies that are underway now. So we can simply decide to do this over a longer period of time. We can decide to push for that in this agreement so that we can afford to do the maintenance that’s required in our highway system across the Northwest Territories. Certainly not all of it, but we can contribute significant amounts.
I guess this is the...
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to follow up on a conversation here and conversations earlier today on child care spaces and what facilities we are putting in place.
First of all, how many child care spaces or facilities do we have in the Northwest Territories? What is the capacity of our child care facilities across the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first question I have on this page is related to Highway No. 3. I don’t see any capital dollars being directed towards Highway No. 3. I think we know, and Mr. Neudorf has said many times, that it’s about the worst highway, most challenging highway in the Northwest Territories. I know there has been some really steady work on this highway and that I believe we have a little bit of research going on out there, too, trying to assess out what some more long-time solutions are, but it continues to be challenging to this day.
There are a number of people, a number of my...
We are in the process of reviewing the capital budget, and the government claims its spending the vast majority of the available funds building highways is an investment in our future. I would suggest that investing in our children has been demonstrated to have a better result, including economic result.
How much money is the government planning to invest in new daycare spaces over the remainder of our term in office as of today?