Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yellowknife Education Districts 1 and 2 are not receiving the funding or support they need to deliver the education that the students of Yellowknife deserve. The edict requiring that pre-kindergarten be delivered by Yellowknife authorities without being funded by ECE places an unfair burden on the budgets of these two districts. It lessens the quality of the education they can provide to the students of Yellowknife. Already teachers are being laid off and student-to-teacher ratios are increasing.

A service previously provided by local daycares and schools on a user pay...

I have to say we did have questions for those people that the Minister brought forward. I just wonder about the responses that we received. I wonder if the Minister has been listening.

My question here is: What evaluation has been done on the pilot program in Fort Providence and how long has this been used to help design programs planned for this coming fall? Mahsi.

Doing in the good services communities have already developed for four-year-olds, ignoring the biggest needs for an early childhood development focus on ages zero to three and their adult caregivers and trying to shift early years responsibilities to providers of four-year-old programs who are inadequately staffed, funded and prepared for younger children is irresponsible. Where is the leadership, the vision? Where is the common sense to follow the clear direction researchers are laying out?

For the life of me, Mr. Speaker, I will have questions. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table feedback that I received from the public with regard to the motion requesting authority to extend the term of the current Assembly. I believe there are about 25 responses here and I would stress that all are from individuals, private citizens, and should not be taken to represent the views of their employers or professional work life. Mahsi.

Thank you. The question was: What evaluation has been done on ECE’s pilot program of junior kindergarten in Fort Providence? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement on a very serious subject here and that’s how we’re taking care of our kids, our smallest kids, with questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

The ECE pilot Junior Kindergarten Program in Fort Providence takes kids in the morning and sends them to the already existing Aboriginal Head Start for the normal 1:00 to 4:00 program in the afternoon, a program that has carried on for years. Aboriginal Head Start, or AHS, reports that kids are wiped out by early afternoon and their parents must be called to pick...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Junior kindergarten, or JK, is becoming our worst fear before the first child is in place. Putting preschoolers at desks, plans to merge them with kindergarten and grades 1, 2 and 3, in some communities; developing a combined curriculum for both JK and kindergarten that fails to distinguish developmentally between four and five-year-olds; JK start-ups before fully trained childhood educators are in place, as if study after study after study has not identified the essential need for high quality programs, at the risk of allowing an achievement gap that can last a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table an article from the Tyee, the 28th of February 2014 issue, entitled “Alberta Mother Fights Five Neighbouring Fracked Wells,” subtitled Diana Daunheimer’s lawsuit follows years of policing industry in her own backyard. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t really know where to start. I’m number three in the one, two, three punch and hopefully the Minister is listening here and developing a tender spot. He’s on the wrong track here. The plans to duplicate Aboriginal Head Start programs for four-year-olds and other programs for four-year-olds, wiping them off the map while putting in place their own inexperienced program when the research shows focus is needed on zero to three. What can I say? The Minister calls this collaboration? How is this collaboration?

Aboriginal Head Start has hard-earned experience, expertise...

I’m glad the Minister understands at least one of the eight major concerns that I read out in my earlier speaking today.

As we all know, devolution will be taking effect as of April 1st. After that date, will any agencies of the GNWT be permitted to make an independent decision on a proposed project or will all decisions be made by the Executive?