Jackson Lafferty

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government agrees that early childhood development is important and also it is one of the priorities of this government. I would like to thank the Members for raising the significance of the early childhood development, because Education, Culture and Employment has already made it a priority and is researching the best way to proceed.

ECE is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Services to revise and renew the existing Early Childhood Development Framework for Action. The chief medical health officer has recently been identified to lead the...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. There have been some slight changes in the funding to various district education authorities. It all comes down to formula funding. The enrolment’s been down so that means some of the organizations are getting less money due to that fact. But we are closely monitoring that and working with the DEAs. Attendance is a big issue right now. It’s a challenge how we can rectify that. We will continue to work with that, but the explanation is due to enrolment.

Guidance counsellor has been addressed before. We provide funding to the school boards and it’s at their discretion if they’re going to hire guidance counsellors, teachers, custodial, support staff. This will definitely be addressed with them when it comes to my meeting with them as board chairs.

The Member has spoken to principal training potentially providing guidance services. I’m fully aware that there is a principals’ annual certification training that happens for principals that are coming into a new position or even existing principals. I have to find out if this is part of their...

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. We talked about the overall review back in 2007, made some changes, and now the Auditor General is going to make an actual review of our Income Assistance Program. More specifically on the Productive Choices program the Member is referring to, if it’s working, what’s working, what’s not working. We have been exploring some areas, as well, within our department and of course we need some support from the communities and also Assembly Members. These are just options that we’re throwing around.

We’re individuals working in the community, especially for the elders, getting wood...

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I did commit to look at this overall inclusive schooling. It could consist of a comprehensive overview of this inclusive schooling. Before I do that, as a department I want to share the terms of reference with the standing committee so that they can have their input as we move forward. We will be pursuing this. I’m committing to that. I will be sharing that information with the standing committee.

Yes, it is based on quantity. We pay for the base price. If there are any changes in fuel costs, it’s also adjusted into our subsidy. There is no impact on certain individual clientele. We continue delivering the program to those individuals, especially the seniors.

We are working on an action plan, as I stated in my report. We are pursuing two pilot projects in two communities. We haven’t identified those two communities yet. We have to work with organizations, agencies, and they need to specify which communities they want us to pursue. We need to work with that. I will be tabling that document in the Legislative Assembly before session ends.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. The last review that was undertaken was back in 2007 and we made some changes to income security. We’ve increased in some areas. It’s been five years now so if that is the wish of committee, then we can certainly look at those areas as well.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We do have program dollars set aside to deal with early childhood program delivery. There are areas that we sponsor, whether it be the child care centres. There are pots of funds that we sponsor, whether it be partial payments of their mortgage, start-up costs and supporting the child that’s in the system as well. So those are just some of the program dollars that we can clearly identify and pass on to Regular Members for their information. Just the detail of the breakdown of various pots of funds within early childhood development. Mahsi.

Through our department we’ve been considering the information that we’ve gathered, as the Member alluded to, from other jurisdictions and providing some options for consideration this year. There’s an options paper that will be discussed next week by deputy ministers. Ms. Iatridis is part of that discussion and she’s kind of the driving force on this. It will be considered at that time and then brought forward to Cabinet. Once that happens, then I’ll be sharing that with the standing committees and the committee members. Mahsi.