Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We just finished collecting the data. I believe it was at the end of March, actually, that the survey was finished. We're compiling it. It was pretty open-ended, so it is a lot of work, actually, to get the 750. It wasn't just ticking off boxes. They were open-ended questions. We are compiling that now. We will be providing it within the next few months.

I feel that the best way of working in consensus government is actually working with committee. What I am proposing, and I haven't actually, but I'd be sending a letter to committee and asking them to meet with them to...

Currently, actually, the funding model doesn't impact if a student doesn't attend. There is no consequence. However, if the student doesn't register at the beginning of the year, there could be an impact in the funding formula because the funding formula is based on the first month of enrolment. Then after that, it is provided for the rest of the year. They are always kind of a year behind. I am not 100 percent satisfied with the funding formula. Other MLAs have asked me about that. In fact, other superintendents have had issues with that, and chairs.

I have actually committed to doing a...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, I will move that Bill 57: An Act to Amend the Employment Standards Act be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We've often heard it all along saying, "we need to get this right." With that polytechnic, we need to get this right. This isn't going to be something that's done too fast. The first thing was developing our vision, trying to find out what are our strengths; what programs should be done. One of the critiques that was in our college foundational report is we tried to do too much for everyone. Sometimes, when you try to do too much, like over 200 mandate question areas, you don't get enough done to address them all. You get spread too thin. We are trying to figure out what our specialization...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As for the term "lobbying," direct lobbying to build our polytechnic university, at this point, we have not. I know that the federal government is working with us. They just gave us $4 million, I believe, for the Centre for Mining and Industry in Fort Smith that was recently opened, which I attended just a couple of months ago. Word on the street is that they are actually looking at post-secondary universities in the north all over, so we are trying to get in on that team to find out what they are doing and what their interests are. Once we have an implementation plan...

When I was travelling to the three communities three or four times, I had heard from staff and from students, et cetera, that they want to have great programming and that we need to have programming for northern students. People were a little bit concerned about national and international students, but it's a good thing. The reality is that our numbers in the Northwest Territories will make it challenging if we didn't look outside of the Northwest Territories.

I want to emphasize, the post-secondary that we provided in the Northwest Territories has to be for northern people based on Northern...

Yes. Actually, we're going to be presenting to standing committee as well on June 5th, so I'm going to give a little bit of heads up to what we're presenting on June 5th, I suppose. We've completed the survey. We've gone across the Northwest Territories. We've reached actually almost 750 surveys. I don't have the number on hand. We'll present it to standing committee. We did a real focus on youth, 29 and under, which I'm very happy to report that we've actually been very successful in getting those voices. With that, we're still breaking down what the vision will be. That process is still...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that I am breaking convention a little bit because I don't really have a constituent, but I do want to recognize the women who are in the House today who are watching the proceedings. I think it is pretty evident that there are not enough women in the House, and so I am really proud to see them and, like my colleague, I am hoping that I will see their names on ballots. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is a high demand, actually, for people who are licensed, who have the qualifications for early childhood development. I know that from personal experience. My previous job before I came into the Assembly, I operated a non-profit organization that had a daycare facility. Of that daycare, only one person had the qualifications, which leaves daycares in jeopardy around supervision of children, around capacity of getting people, and parents' concerns.

Is it okay that we have children in licensed daycare providers' homes that we are paying good money for, that the...

I thought I was clear. For clarification, Mr. Chair, any child who is in junior kindergarten or kindergarten is not compelled to be in school. It is not a mandatory requirement, although we try to work with the parents, and encourage them to attend. Any child from Grade 1 to 12 is mandatory to be in that. There are some repercussions for it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.