Jackson Lafferty

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.

Obviously this is an excellent idea. Even when I was in high school, we had different professionals coming to the community, for example, bankers, talking about accounting. This is an area I need to share with the DEAs and DECs. It’s their school, as well, and I need to work with them. I’m sure they will be more than receptive because they are always looking for ideas on how we can have educational awareness around accounting, around banking. I’m glad the Member has given us some ideas that we can generate within DECs and DEAs. I will be bringing that to their attention. Mahsi.

When we received the reports, obviously it’s public money so it is a public document as well. Most of the information that we receive is also on our website. Through the monitoring, evaluation and accountability we make sure that everything’s accounted for. Any time that the standing committee requests a public document, we’d be more than happy to share that with the standing committee, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. On an annual basis we provide $15 million to Aboriginal language organizations. It does vary to various organizations within the communities and Aboriginal governments. I highlighted some of the key factors, I believe it was last week. Approximately $15.127 million: $8.4 million goes directly to education authorities; $6.2 million is split between Aboriginal governments and the Aboriginal Languages Secretariat; we provide the breakdown to the DECs that I can share with the Member, a breakdown of $3.2 million investment captures teaching and learning centres, Aboriginal...