Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this session I did a statement on nursing in Tsiigehtchic. I have questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

I would like an update on the nurse that was committed to in this Chamber last February. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really support this e-learning initiative, and although we are asking for more funds here, I have been contacted by the Beaufort-Delta Education Council and they’re very excited for the coming year because they are getting an increase of $500,000. They’re really excited about that. I know the Sahtu is ready to come on board, and once that happens, I think that we could move forward on there and maybe increase it more next year, but at this time I can’t support this.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a few comments and questions for the Minister. First off, I’d like to start with the Louis Cardinal extended operations. Great idea. We had some success this fall mostly due to the mild weather in October and the first part of November. We had an extra two weeks, I believe, from what is normally experienced up in Tsiigehtchic and the Mackenzie Delta. Really mild weather, so that really helped us out a lot on the extension of the operations. I know we had a lot of challenges after the ice froze in there, as expected. I did try to caution the department that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one more brief thing. I know the department is working on the curriculum within the Gwich’in language to hopefully bring forward very soon. I know this firsthand because I had the opportunity to travel with the Minister to Alaska to see how they operate over in Alaska with the Gwich’in language. It was very impressive to see two young students there who didn’t know very much Gwich’in when they began, but within not even their first year they are very fluent and speaking with their teacher. I know that’s one area that the Tlicho are moving on, because they were also...

Mr. Chairman, that’s all the questions I have right now, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple comments on this page.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Even though I am a major supporter of early childhood development, at this point I am not in favour of reallocating any additional money at this time. The reason being, last year, when we did ask for increases to our budget, it took away from other areas within the department and that has really been felt within the communities.

Inclusive schooling, for example, I think the department is moving ahead. I know this year is the first year we are doing junior kindergarten. Some people may not be in favour of that, but in the smaller communities it has a huge impact. I know...

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One thing I forgot to mention earlier was along the lines of junior kindergarten. I’m really impressed by the board in the Tlicho region that they’re moving ahead with actually implementing the junior kindergarten in the Tlicho language. I’m really impressed by that. I know they’re working very hard to keep their culture and tradition alive. That’s really great to see and I look forward to that happening in other regions as well as the Sahtu. Hopefully one day very soon it’s up in the Beaufort-Delta region, whether it’s in Gwich’in or Inuvialuktun. I think we’re on the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Moving on here, I just wanted to commend the department for looking into the junior kindergarten. That’s really needed in the communities. Over the last couple of years we’ve seen an increase in the demand to increase our grade levels, and I think that this is one way to start tackling that issue. I know it is a real challenge in the smaller communities to keep our grade levels up because of the shortage of teachers compared to students. A lot of times we have one teacher for two or three grades and that is very challenging, I have heard from a lot of the teachers in...