Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will start by saying, definitely, there is a need for infrastructure for daycares. It is not in our program mandates at this time. I think it is something that we need to look at in the next Assembly. It's the end of this one. It's a couple of months left. However, I think it's bigger than that. I mean, thinking in the box says: give me a building, and I can make a daycare. However, I want to challenge it a little bit.

When I first took over the position of Minister of Education in April last year, my issue was not just about daycares. I talked about residential schools...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is correct. They are fully funded under the funding formula that we have now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My hope is that a lot of these people actually return to their communities and offer licensed daycare provision, recognizing that not all daycare providers are licensed centres. We are also looking for the smaller communities to get licensed day homes. Then, of course, like I had said, there is always, in Yellowknife, a huge demand. The turnover is huge. Again, my previous experience is that a lot of people who do get the early childhood development go on. They look at other occupations. They move into schools. They apply for government jobs. They sometimes go into social...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the inclusive schooling money is applied to the junior kindergarten and the kindergarten, the four- and five-year-olds. I do want to clarify, Mr. Chair, that I feel that it's unfair to say that junior kindergarten is not working. We just started. This is the second time that we have actually done the results. The first one was six years ago. We just had the baseline data. We don't even know how correct that was. We just implemented junior kindergarten across the Northwest Territories in the last couple of years. It's really premature to say that the program is not...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do need to clarify my last answer. The last time I had seen a briefing note, it was 19, but we are actually up to 26 now. The total number of scholarships is 30 scholarships available a year, and we are at 26 as of today. They are given out in the fall. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point, anyone who is in junior kindergarten, it is an optional program. They don't have to be there. They can have the flexibility. Like I said, some are in half days, some are full days, some don't even choose. Not every child who is four years old is in junior kindergarten in the Northwest Territories.

I'd be a little bit leery to say that, once you enrol, that's it, you're locked in, and you have to be there every day, because I'm not sure if that's the intent. We've had kindergarten in the Northwest Territories. I'm 58 years old, and we had kindergarten. I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Fort Liard is now operational, with a licensed daycare provider. Tsiigehtchic was open for a total of one month and, at this moment, is having some internal issues, I would say. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Right at the current time, junior kindergarten and kindergarten are not compulsory. We need to be flexible with them, and I'm not sure if we want to actually broach on making them compulsory because we need the flexibility to be able to work with communities such as communities that have Aboriginal Head Start. I'm an advocate of Aboriginal Head Start. I think it's a great program. They've asked us to be flexible in the programming, so some programs like Fort Providence are not even doing their JK. Actually, they're doing just the Aboriginal Head Start. Other places are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, yes, there are 11 communities that don't have licensed childcare provision. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with the Member, again. Tsiigehtchic is a good example of how we tried to go in there. The attendance was low, but it wasn't ECE that pulled the funding. It was a decision by the community. We're more than willing to go back in and reinstate the funding, but it's sustainability of programs. That's why I'm saying that we need to start looking outside the box. We need to look at different solutions, because right now we base it on head count, between $15-something a day up to $49 a day for children. $49 a day, $50 a day, is a pretty good supplement, and then parents...