Jackson Lafferty

When I met with CKLB and the NCS chair, I offered, from my department, a financial accountant to deal with their bookkeeping challenges, their debt load that we’re aware of. So, the offer is on the table with the board chair and also to deal with the board members. It is at their discretion if they want to take advantage of that, but we offered that. We are offering as much support as we possibly can, as a department, to the organization because we want them to be back up and running. That’s what we’re offering at this point. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When it comes to the safety of our school children, that is a priority of this department, working with the DEAs and DECs. The Safe and Caring Schools Initiative, obviously supporting schools and teachers in developing tools needed to create such an environment and we do also have a working group. It deals with all the partners, the parents, the educators, administrators in our school system. Even at the DEAs and DECs and they also work very closely with all the education authorities to make sure that they’re complying with all the safety rules and regulations.

So it is a...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Again, when the decision was made October 30, 2014, it was decided that we would continue with rolling out of junior kindergarten in 19 communities, based on the feedback that we received, and 18 the following year, not to proceed with the second and third phases and to continue with re-profiled funds from education councils. That was the decision that we went with.

Last year, 2014-15, it cost us approximately $1.8 million. In 2015-16 it will be approximately $1.3 million. That was the decision that was made by our government to move forward. That is what we’re doing, unless...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is new from what we’ve heard. When we had the Aboriginal Languages Symposium we heard from various stakeholders and the general public that we need to do something about our language preservation and revitalization. They wanted us to have a system in place similar to the Languages Bureau that we had back in the 1990s. This is a similar set-up where we have an associate director in that position in the past, a director of official languages, and having a couple key staff within the museum to work very closely with the language groups. We also provide funding directly...

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We’re just looking for detailed information on the actual delivery through Aurora College. There have been some programs in addition to what we’ve had before, where we had certification in early childhood programming. Through our southern institution partners, we’ve also been involved and engaged with developing diploma programming. That’s still in the early stages. Those are just some of the discussions that we’re currently having. We’re just trying to get the most detailed information from the college, what they currently deliver, and we can provide that information to the...

Mahsi, Madam Chair. That’s correct. It is part of the grants and contributions. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. Absolutely. We are currently doing that already with some of the local artists from across the Northwest Territories. We want to showcase each of the regions as much as we possibly can in the hallway of the museum, and even go further. If we have more additional spaces then we’ll take advantage of that as well.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. The Early Child Worker Grant Program, the budget increase obviously represents additional funding for early childhood learning and the child care worker. This is just an area that has been initiated already and part of the initiation that we need to develop to identify those individuals that are working in early childhood who are one of the lowest paid in the Northwest Territories, and we want to increase their incentive. That’s where it’s at, the $391,000 that we’re looking at right now.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. To my left I have the deputy minister of ECE, Gabriela Eggenhofer; to my immediate right is Olin Lovely, assistant deputy minister of corporate services within ECE; and Dana Heide, associate deputy minister with ECE.

Madam Chair, this obviously has been brought up in this House as well. I did raise that issue with the Board of Governors. It is their policy that they have in place. They are developing their strategic plan as we speak, this 2015. I did reiterate that this is of key importance that we need to deal with and it has been brought to their attention again. It is before the Board of Governors to decide if they are going to make some changes to their existing policy to deal with student housing.