Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a question on the Aboriginal language and culture-based education. I know we have, I think, a couple of programs where we produce teachers or teacher equivalents in languages and culture such as the ALCIP program. What certificates or diplomas are available, and how many graduates do we have in this fiscal year?

I will be asking for an internal audit of how the government has performed in carrying out the Members’ amendments of past budgets, and I will seek advice from the Auditor General on the propriety of taking the money that Members vote for one cost and spending it on another. This has got to stop.

Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate his comments there. I appreciate the focus he’s bringing to this, and I urge him not to stop or slow down. There are issues remaining out there, and I want to acknowledge that not all income assistance officers are like this. I do acknowledge that there are undoubtedly some people taking advantage of the system and that must be very frustrating, but we shouldn’t be making the people that really need our help – for whatever reason, it’s real – they shouldn’t be paying the price here. Thanks to the Minister for that, and I’ll look forward to more on that.

Just...

Thanks for that information. I’d like to see a distinct proposal come forward to committee and I hope it does.

Moving on, again, the cultural heritage arts organizations and projects, there is a real need for an arts centre – arts, cultural and heritage centre, really – in a number of regions. Certainly in the capital. This is obviously an infrastructure project, but I don’t know that the government would be responsible for a large role in that, but I would see the government playing a role in facilitating an effort by all of the groups and perhaps the community interested in pursuing that...

Mr. Chair, Aurora College obviously is the major player in delivering this. Are there other partners in the delivery of the ALBE? Does the department itself play a role or are there other partners? Thank you.

Thank you. My question was activity three, early childhood community outreach, and the Minister has spoken about activity two. But obviously it would be very disappointing if at the very end of the fiscal year we provided the money for a program and then in a few weeks later discontinued it. That is exactly where government gets its reputation from.

So my question was on the substantial amount of funding on early childhood community outreach. What have we done in this area? Have we extended the money and are we going to bring that forward? Is that in this new budget?

Thanks to the Minister for that information. I know we have done a pretty extensive review ourselves of ALBE through our program review office, and I know, I think maybe the Auditor General may have commented as well. One of the things that is clear is that we spend a lot of money on this, a lot of money on ALBE, and I have to say, I was a little bit surprised when I found out we’re getting a whole bunch more money from CanNor for this. It’s not something I would ever turn down, of course. I’m happy to see it. But one of the issues was we didn’t know what we were achieving with those dollars...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m happy to get on the list again. I didn’t hear the Minister say that that commitment had been fulfilled, that we have actually two fully qualified early childhood development workers looking after children in these communities. Could I still get that confirmed? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. Just to be clear, we would have both what we’re paying now and what we would be paying if these workers all met federal standards for early childhood workers so that we can compare. That’s probably what the Minister was saying, but I didn’t hear it exactly, so I just want to be sure we’re talking about the same thing.

That’s good to know. Maybe that’s something the department could share with committee at some point just to see what those reports said. I’m glad efficiencies have been found and worked on. I guess I would just ask the Minister to be sure and include that, then, in the education renewal. That’s all I had.