Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Robert C. McLeod will be absent from the House for a portion of today’s proceedings to participate in a multilateral conference call regarding the long-term plan for public infrastructure. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Chair, the extensive review that has been undertaken in the 16th Assembly, there were quite a few recommendations brought forward. When we are meeting with the standing committee next week, we will be going through… Actually, we will provide that detailed information beforehand. It does capture what my department is going to be following through with and each of the recommendations brought forward, what the plan is for ECE to follow up. Those are the areas that we are seriously taking into consideration.

The two language boards established under the Official Languages Act, one of the...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Yes, the $26 million, it’s a lot of money, but it’s going strictly to the school boards, as well, and if we need to make those drastic changes, I need to work with the school boards. We’re talking about positions as well. It’s not only programming. So the teachers, the special needs teachers and support staff and so forth at the community level and at the regional level. So it does have a potential impact. But at the same time I understand where the Member is coming from, where maybe we can utilize some of those funds towards early childhood. That may be something that we’ve...

Madam Chair, I agree with the Member that this needs to be a collaborative approach with the Department of Health and Social Services. We have been working together on various projects already and we will continue to have this dialogue. It is an important piece of work. We will continue to discuss that further as we move along. Mahsi.

Mr. Chairman, we have identified the funds in there right now as it is. We are pursuing with the Early Childhood Development Framework. It’s not only our department, it’s with the Department of Health and Social Services and we’re talking about the centres in the regions and having a pilot project in two of the communities. We’ve identified funds already which may not be covered in here, but we feel that it’s important to pursue with the Early Childhood Development Initiative. So we’re doing what we can within our department to find the funds to cover the two centres that we talked about as...

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Those areas that the Member specified are important to be part of our school system. I’ll try and gather some more information on that specific topic which we don’t have detail but can provide to the Members what is currently being delivered pertaining to those areas. I know there are certain curricula that are out there. Social studies that reflect on the northern perspective. Also inclusion of residential school era curriculum that is going to be delivered this fall. Those are some of the areas that we’ve captured already but I will be getting back to the Members on the...

With specifics to the NWTTA negotiations that were undergoing and the conclusion of that, the Member is asking for specific information on this which I don’t have in front of me, but I will be more than happy to get back to the Member on what is the status on those initiatives that were discussed at that point.

I do believe this information needs to be discussed. There are times when we do discuss these situations within Cabinet as well. At the same time, we’re just down the hallway as well. If there is information that is not reaching the MLAs, please stop by and inquire about those with the specific Ministers or the Premier and then we can follow up instantly. There are times where information takes time to explore and do more research with our community organizations. We’ll do our best as a government to follow up.

All the Ministers are here today. They are listening to the concerns and questions that are raised. There are some areas that do take time. We have to work with NGOs as well as department organizations within the communities and Aboriginal organizations. Sometimes we are limited in resources, as well, to dig up some more research analysis and so forth.

The 90 days and 120 days that the Member is referring to, we need to get more information on those areas. The standard rule is to reply within five days as best as we can and at times it will take a longer time.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today and tomorrow to attend the Western Premiers Conference in Edmonton, Alberta. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.