Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, further to my Return to Written Question 9-16(2), I wish to table the following document, entitled Yellowknife School Enrolments, 2003–2004 to 2007–2008. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Document 41-16(2), Yellowknife School Enrolments, 2003–2004 to 2007–2008, tabled.

Mr. Speaker, I believe, yesterday, there were ten or two inmates. We’re certainly working with the Yellowknife Correction Centre as well, and young offenders. We’ve been working on that for quite some time now — to look at options — and that’s one of the options we are seriously looking at. The inmates will be looked after. Also having those correctional workers at that correction facility will certainly look after them. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, there’s been considerable discussion on this particular subject: the closing down of the Arctic Tern that’s been proposed.

Part of their reasoning behind it is the operation cost: having two or no inmates in the facility, having 20 staff plus seven relief staff to look after a facility, and $2.5 million to operate the facility. Also, Mr. Speaker, just to maintain the building…. It’s roughly $500,000 a year to have an upgrade of the facility annually.

It’s just not feasible to operate the facility that way. That was part of the reason we decided to go with that Arctic Tern Facility...

I appreciate the Member’s statement on this particular issue. It is a concern for our community. It wasn’t an easy decision going through the process.

With regard to other new buildings that the Member is alluding to, we are in the process of retrofitting. We’re not focusing on new buildings. Mr. Speaker, I’d just like to highlight that there are nine individuals we’re working with in the facility of Arctic Tern. We are making progress, and we’ll do what we can to assess the remainder of the workers at the facility.

I can only speak to my department. Basically, what we have proposed is for Arctic Tern for now. We are working on the options for the community as well. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, we do provide funding to our childhood development certification program at Aurora College. We will continue to do that. We are producing results. We are producing certified teachers, I guess we can call them. We’ll focus on that as well, and where we can improve our program, we are certainly open to that. Certainly we will take those into consideration, and we will continue to support in these areas. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member’s question in this specific area. It has always been my interest when I was a Regular MLA. We do continue to offer support in these areas. We support training programs through Aurora College and with our respective partnership from the Southern Institute, as well, deliver the ALTA program — aboriginal instructor’ program — and also the CTIP program, TIP program.

Mr. Speaker, we also work with the communities. The elders are the most valuable tool in our communities as well. So we utilize their services in the communities, because they’re the ones who give us...

Mr. Speaker, the third week in February is celebrated across Canada as Heritage Week. This year the theme, “Telling Our Stories,” is particularly relevant to us in the Northwest Territories.

The City of Yellowknife Heritage Committee kicked off its celebration of Heritage Week last Sunday with an afternoon of storytelling.

The Northern Life Museum in Fort Smith has a full week of programs, including moccasin, beaver mitt and Metis sash crafting workshops led by local artisans, tours of the museum and a display of historical photos.

The Norman Wells Historical Centre is featuring an exhibit of...

Mr. Speaker, we do provide programs such as Head Start, a pre-school aboriginal language and cultural perspective, and also we’re promoting more aboriginal languages at school, whether it be K-12 or continuing on. We do have aboriginal instructors in classrooms as well. We do also utilize elders, as I indicated earlier, and we had an aboriginal instructors’ forum last month, I do believe, to try to get their input into how we can produce even more children to speak their language.

So we are getting input from the groups and also from the community leaders and also from the elders on how we can...

Mahsi. Mr. Speaker, our government does realize that learning starts at a young age.

Our department — and also the Government of the Northwest Territories — does consider funding various levels, such as early childhood programs, early childhood contributions and policies, and children’s initiatives. These are just some of the areas I’m highlighting. It is in the works. We've been funding for a number of years. There are also federal funding initiatives.

Those are the areas we will continue to fund, because we as a government feel it is important to start at an early age.

I’ll just highlight some...