Mr. Chair, my understanding is that it is a combination, but at the same time, the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is at the early stages. We’ve rolled out a couple programs. One is to deal with attendance. The other one is cultural orientation as mandatory. But others are coming along. It doesn’t really reflect on this yet, but some of the schools have seen an increase just last year as well. We’ll continue to work with this on ASA. All the parties are involved in these discussions as well. The DEAs are involved and are signatories to the ASA Initiative. Our goal is to improve and...

I agree with the Member. An initial thought the Member raised the issue about the principals, so I figured I would touch on the principals’ annual certification program. At the same time it should be offered to other teachers and support staff as well. This falls in line of other organizations that we work with; NWTTA as well that deals with all the teachers. I’ll get Ms. Iatridis to provide some background of other projects that are out there in the Northwest Territories.

I totally agree with the Member on the Productive Choices. We need to closely monitor what’s working and what’s not working. We realize that some individuals do take advantage and some are legitimate individuals that want to succeed in life. We need to closely monitor that and make changes reflecting that. We’ll continue to push that forward within our department.

And, yes, we’ll provide more detailed information on the four program areas, a breakdown for the Member’s review. We’ll definitely do that. Mahsi.

The directive on inclusive schooling will be considered as part of the comprehensive overall review. Once we develop the terms of reference, we will share it with our colleagues and we want to start at least late this summer or early fall and start initiating our discussion on this particular important piece of work.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. The Auditor General is doing an overall review of income support, more specifically to productive choices, whether it be home care, seniors’ fuel subsidy area. That is happening over the summer or fall. By Christmas we should have a report from them. Based on that, we need to re-evaluate our programming. It is going to be happening. When it comes to seniors’ subsidy, fuel subsidy, based on household income and I did instruct my department to look at some options. That is currently being developed as we speak. Once I review that and share it with my Cabinet colleagues, then...

The Early Childhood Development Framework, as we stated in this House, is long overdue. We’re going to be doing the consultation this fall, as I indicated in my Minister’s statement as well. We want to complete the overall review by the end of this fiscal year and get ready for the next business planning cycle so we can identify funds to start implementing that. That is the overall plan.

I’m not sure if there’s a set time on a review basis, but since we’ve done the review back in 2007, I just got word from my acting deputy that we are still making some changes since 2007 following through with the recommendations that are brought forward. It is at the somewhat early stages still, but we are going to look at what’s out there now and what should be changed. I’ve already committed that we’ll look at it and see where we can make some changes, if we need to consult with various organizations as we’ve done before.

Those individual organizations, if they want to start up a service, they can go through our regional representatives. We have various programs that are available to them. Our regional representative will be more than happy to sit down with those individuals or organizations that are interested in pursuing and providing services in the community, such as early childhood. So we do have a representative at the regional level and we can provide those names and contact information as well. Mahsi.

Sorry about that. Yes, most definitely. Once I meet with the Board of Governors at the college in Inuvik, we’ll provide a briefing or a memo to the Members of the outcome of our discussion. So Members can share with their constituencies those concerns that are brought forward and there will be basically a general discussion that we’ll be having with them. At that time I guess we’ll find out what kind of decisions need to be made. So I’ll be working closely with the college on that and I’ll keep the Members up to speed as we move forward on this particular subject. It is a concern to us as well...

Mr. Chair, I did commit to it. So I’ll definitely follow through and work with the Members on this. Mahsi.