Caroline Cochrane

I do know that we've received money from the federal government to address Indigenous languages. I can't say if they are fully. I will have to get back to the Member and let her know where we are with that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Early integration or early exposure for children to learn Indigenous language is not a new thing. We do provide funding effective 2018, this year, actually, for junior kindergarten, so they are included in the funding that is given to schools for Indigenous learning, Indigenous teaching. Even before that, I remember operating a daycare and, for many years, actually, looking to bring elders into daycare centres. It's always been promoted to actually utilize people that are from the land, from the speakers, into early childcare programming, remembering that JK is play...

I am not sure what the terminology was, but earlier today I had heard somebody say, sorry if I get it wrong, but, basically, that our nursing program is a cornerstone of Aurora College. I agree that the nursing program is an example of what we should be doing and what we can be doing. The nursing program actually is one of the leaders on bringing in our Truth and Reconciliation. Things that they do: right now, it is reviewed regularly, on an annual basis, to make sure that we are taking in the Truth and Reconciliation recommendations. In year one, students take part in either an experiential...

We do have funding, actually, to provide for people, for Indigenous people, who want to or people who speak Indigenous languages, I shouldn't be exclusive, that want to actually pursue a diploma schooling in Indigenous language revitalization. As of today, we have had 14 recipients of our scholarship program. That shows that we are working on it, the action. I mean 14 sounds good, but it isn't good, Mr. Speaker. Fourteen is only a start. We need to again promote more revitalization. We need to make sure that we have speakers so that they can bring forward this and so our 11 languages do not...

Yes, we are actively working on our action plan, implementing the strategies that are in it, again, reminding that the two main priorities within the action plan are revitalization, and the other one is access.

We have been working with access, training GNWT employees. With revitalization, we have done quite a bit. We have got the scholarships in schools. We are working in partnership with Aurora College to implement a program for language revitalization for people.

The other thing that we have done already is we have updated our Aboriginal language directive and replaced it with a new policy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to recognize one of the Pages, young Ms. Brooke Vallis, who is a member of Range Lake, and we are really honoured to have her here as a Page. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, that was one of the contentious issues that was brought, and that was why I came to standing committee, was when I had given a direction asking the NWT Status of Women to support me in having more women in the leadership. I was definitely told that that mandate is my mandate. It is not for the Status of Women to do, and that I need to do that. So what are we doing? We are doing the campaign schools. We're just finishing up the draft; I'll be sharing that fairly soon. We will be contracting with the Native Women's Association and the NWT Status of Women to actually do a pilot of those...

Again, as I stated the other day in answering that question, the Status of Women Council has been successful in accessing -- one of the mines has given them, I believe, either $8,000 or $9,000, and then they are also eligible for at least $5,000 through the Women's Initiative. That, in total, if I look at the lower of $8,000, that's actually a total of $13,000. If we were to honour four women, that would be probably about $3,000 per community. Traditionally, throughout my years of being a Minister here and going to events, usually it's about $500 that we give for a community feast, which...

Again, like I had said -- sorry, we just knocked over a basket -- the Indigenous language programming is offered not only to JK; it's also to all students, so the JK students are actually able to take part in the programming that's already being offered to the kindergarten students. I do want to point out that we have two communities, Fort Providence is one of them, and Behchoko, actually, that have more of an Indigenous immersion. Within Behchoko, it's JK, junior kindergarten, to grade two, full immersion, and then Fort Providence is junior kindergarten to grade three. I think those are fine...

We do have some resources already that we use within our schools. We are always redoing our resources. The same resources that we would use for kindergarten with our Indigenous languages will be used for junior kindergarten. A lot of that is actually having elders come in and speak with them and play with them, so the development of resources isn't always having a book. That is more of a western culture. Within an Indigenous culture, it's more storytelling, having elders coming in and speaking to the children and showing them concrete examples, so we try to incorporate both western culture and...