Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, ensuring the care and safety of children and providing accessible programs and services to families across the Northwest Territories is a top priority of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment identified the need to do a full review of the current licensing system for daycare centres, family day homes and Aboriginal Head Start programs to ensure compliance with legislation as part of Action 6 of the Right from the Start Early Childhood Framework and Action Plan. ECE is responsible for licensing these programs under the NWT...

As I stated earlier, those operators in the Northwest Territories were invited for their input; and Montessori, I can’t really speak to that organization, but I’m pretty sure they were invited to provide input. If not, then they should be allowed to provide input into our Early Childhood Development Framework.

We want to hear from each and every operator in the Northwest Territories. Not only that but the terms of reference obviously stated that we needed to conclude by March 31, 2015.

Mr. Speaker, ensuring Aboriginal languages survive for future generations is a key priority for our government and the Members of this Legislative Assembly. One of the most effective ways to ensure the continued use of all of the NWT’s 11 official languages is simply using and hearing these languages as part of our day-to-day interactions. This theme of “use it or lose it” resonates through the regional Aboriginal language plans now being implemented by Aboriginal governments, the 2009 Committee Report on Official Languages and the government’s 2010 “Aboriginal Languages Plan – A Shared...

As I stated earlier, we are compiling all of the program reviews. This Early Childhood Framework is one of them and the universal child care study, the review that’s been undertaken by my department, collecting all of the data, information and compiling all of the information within my department. We are currently reviewing those processes as well.

With respect to the dates, I won’t be able to give an answer today as to when it will be completed, but this will be a transitional document for the new government because it will deal with the new funding. The funding has been identified by the...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The Early Childhood Development Framework, the framework action plan has been in the works for quite some time now and we felt that it was necessary and important that we engaged the stakeholders, the operators, the early childhood workers, the front-line workers, the managers, and so we invited them to participate either by phone or interview or in person. So we’ve conducted those processes as well. The review also includes licensing processes and Healthy Children Initiative funding. There’s also Small Communities Initiative funding, child care subsidy funding. So the...

Any opportunity for the department to visit the community, obviously, I’m receptive to it, having my department and myself visiting and also meeting with the officials and the community members on how we can deal with this matter. As I stated, there are at least six different items that are being worked on as we speak since November 2013. It may not be completed fully, but those are areas that we continue to work on, because we have to keep in mind the safety of all our students.

When the Member is talking about opportunities to meet, by all means, those are areas that I’m willing to consider...

Those are discussions we are currently having and that could be part of the transitional document. There are other programs under review. It is part of the discussions we are currently having with the Program Review Office, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

We do have a committee established that deals with these kinds of initiatives and policy development. The Program Review Office has initiated the discussions.

As I stated, that letter has been sent to standing committee and the feedback has come back to us now within our Cabinet to consider those recommendations brought to our attention by the standing committee to integrate that into our new policy that has been drafted. So, we will be updating that and sharing that with the standing committee once it’s available. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When it comes to daycare operations, we work closely with the operators. With the experience in Inuvik, that was some time ago. There was a need for a daycare establishment. The community fund raised up to 90 percent of the funds. That is an experience we’ve gone through. There is a policy being drafted now on public investment on private infrastructure. It’s been shared with the planning committee. Now there’s feedback to Cabinet. It’s before Cabinet to develop a policy with respect to that, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

What the Member is referring to, obviously, is the floor movement between the gymnasium and the corridor, and my department is fully aware of that. The Member and I are considering visiting Deline, if it all works, on June 12th for the grad. We’re still working on the logistics for that. If it works, then that will be ample opportunity to sit down with the Member and also the leadership to go visit the school, as well, because that is part of the plan as we speak.