Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Right now, we have 11. With the rollout of these extra four. That will bring us to 15, and then next year, we are looking at bringing it up another five, so that will bring us to 20 small schools, including the riding of Nahendeh.

I would love to be able to just say, like, "Yes, we are going to go live, and you know, it will be accessible to everyone," but it is very expensive programming and it takes a lot of work to actually do things like curriculum development. It is huge. Getting the teachers trained and providing that is huge. Also what I thought it would be a small...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The idea of the income support through the productive choices is to provide people the support so that they can prosper as they define "wellness," but, again, income support is for basic needs. If people are looking for education, they may need to combine the two programs together. They may need to combine that with the student financial assistance, if they qualify, and then sometimes people do need to be topped up with that, with income support. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The understanding is that they will be indeterminate unless we decide to give back control to the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is a three-year program, I believe. I am not sure what will happen with the new election that comes up. I agree that it is important programming. I think that we need to try to lobby to make sure that it goes further. I also think that we need to work better towards this.

I have heard comments that some schools are taking it and some aren't, and I think it is something that we should bring to the education leaders' table. I think we would be a lot better off if we coordinated within the regions and actually did it through councils and then assimilated to the schools...

Just a quick comment. Just to say that graduation rates, sometimes, it not just that the students don't graduate. In some of the smaller communities, there are actually no students in those higher grades for various reasons. We have a community with five students, period. Those are the realities of some of the schools that we're dealing with. It's not always because they just don't get through. Sometimes, the cohort of children aged is not at that time yet. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do know that there are only two French language schools, but there are also 47 other schools that I am also responsible for, so it is something that I have to make sure that I spread my ability throughout. As for looking at it right now, if that was brought to me, actually, when I first started in April or two years ago, before it was my portfolio, I would have considered it, but we have six months left, and it is in the legislation. It is inappropriate at this time to start looking at that. We just don't have the time in this Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As part of the evaluation that we are doing right now, we have submitted a survey to parents asking about the SCIP program and their feedback on it, as well. They will be part of the evaluation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, yes, productive choices includes things like training, upgrading, and education. Health, wellness, volunteering in the community, and paid work, those are all included in productive choice. Of course, the whole idea is to promote wellness. I know people say "self-sufficiency," but I say "combined sufficiency" so that people will get the best of their abilities, not to just stay that they are going to get kicked off the system but that they will obtain the best that they can. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is also in education later on. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The comment that was made that there is no sense in looking at other jurisdictions, and we need to do what is best for us, is absolutely right. However, there is no sense reinventing the wheel. It makes sense. Best practices would say to look at all of the different funding models that are out there and then decide which one works best for the territories, even if we have to adjust it from there, instead of just trying to pick something out of the air and saying how that will work. So I beg to differ; I think that it is important to do research before we make actions.

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