Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 22, An Act to Amend the Education Act, No. 2, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Education Act to provide that the Minister shall prescribe the hours of instruction for the academic year for kindergarten, subject to a minimum threshold of 485 hours. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I could have an open consultative process, but at the end of the day there may be no deal. We would spend the money on a consultation without knowing if we’re even going to get one dollar to spend on this program. At this point, until we see the money in the budget, we don’t know the terms and conditions or when it’s going to come down. So, no, I’m not prepared to advance the prospect of going out on a consultation to try and find out how we should spend this. Because of the nature of the agreement, I can’t even share with the public what the draft is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the base funding that the small jurisdictions are seeking would amount to $5 million a year each. That would be over and above the per capita. If we were to get straight per capita money…and again, this is if the money were flowing at $1 billion a year. We know it likely won’t; there will be a number of things that come out of this money, so we’re probably not talking about $5 billion in total that will be split between the provinces and territories. But if it were $1 billion for any one year that was being split between all the provinces and territories...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As part of our Teacher Education Program, that is, in fact, done by the college right now. That’s part of the Teacher Education Program. Mr. Speaker, we run a system of education in the Northwest Territories where local control is considered very important, so schools can reflect local culture, the local wishes of parents. So the funding is handed from this government to the boards by way of formula and there aren't a lot of ways in which we control that. We have the Education Act which sets out how things have to be done. We have an accepted curriculum, we have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for instance, the Tlicho or Dogrib Community Services Board takes every teacher out on the land before school for a week for a community hunt. Almost all of the regions, in fact all of the regions do some form of cultural awareness. So it’s best handled at the board level because each region has a different culture that needs to be appreciated. Each of the boards take the lead on providing the detailed cultural awareness programming and that’s accommodated through the transfers they are provided to operate the boards in each region.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, childcare is an area of exclusive provincial and territorial responsibility. We’re not talking about a national system, we’re not talking about something that would be the same in all jurisdictions. For instance, Quebec already has a system that is the envy of everybody else in Canada and they’re putting billions of dollars into that. Our system is starting from a different point, as is every other system in Canada. So what we’re talking about is a program where the federal government would assist the provinces and territories to improve on the systems...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NWT, like most jurisdictions, is willing to accept the accountability provisions as long as there is adequate money. The problem we face right now is if the money flows to us through the CST and comes only in a per capita basis, the costs to report on what we are doing would take up an awful lot of the amount of money that we would get. As Members of this House know, if we get funding flowed to us on a solely per capita basis, we will not get enough money to make a significant difference in the childcare field. So our position is that there has to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Aurora College Annual Report 2003-2004. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we’re not talking about redesigning the program yet because we have no idea what sort of money we’re talking about or what the deal is going to look like that we sign with the federal government for the money to flow to us. Not until we know what sort of emphasis we sign on to with this agreement, but we’re starting to get a better understanding. As I told the Member in a previous series of questions, the provinces, territories and federal government have moved the wording in the agreement quite a ways along, but there are some people who are not satisfied...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if we’re talking just about day cares, I can answer the question. In terms of 2004-05, the funding for early childhood programming is $1.989 million. It’s important to remember that the program that we’re talking about with the federal government is not for day care. It is an Early Learning and Childcare Program that they are interested in investing in. This is not just aimed at day cares. It’s quite clear from the federal point of view that that’s not what this is about. We are working together to try to come up with a system that improves on early...