Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, I did commit to providing additional new money to those educational authorities that exceed 16 to 1. Those are areas that we’ll look at. Then again, we have to keep in mind the Education Act. It’s territorial-wide PTR and it is 16 to 1.

Yellowknife came at us with additional potential students projected, so we looked at that. Other community schools, other regions, those are discussions that we’ve had with them as well. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We have been working with the CEO of NCS over the years and working with the federal government on their behalf as well. We have bent over backwards to deal with their financial situation. We provide funding on an annual basis, based on the reporting mechanism. There are some challenges we’re faced with within their management, within the federal government, within GNWT working with both parties. We will continue to provide those annual contributions. The proposal has been submitted to us. We are ready to release the funding, but there are some areas of challenges we’re...

There has been a lot of debate going back and forth between myself and the school board chairs and the school boards across the Northwest Territories. We’ve met just as recently as last month and I did listen to the school board chairs. We are going to have over 600 individual students registered over the two-year timespan. The fact is that 23 communities are ready to take on the role of JK. At the same time, I’ve been making some amendments to our initial stand where I provided optional junior kindergarten. At the beginning it was mandatory and everybody had to do it, but after listening...

Mr. Speaker, as has been indicated in this House, the PTR funding has been re-profiled across the Northwest Territories on a three-year phased approach. If an individual community is delivering the programming to the community and there’s a surplus of students that accidentally show up, those students would be identified through extraordinary funding through my department, my shop. We would provide that to the school board and it would be up to school board, at their discretion, if they’re going to hire an additional teacher or not, based on the funding we provide to them, based on the number...

The Member for Inuvik congratulated 36 graduates, and that’s just one area that we should be proud of and we’ll continue to push that forward. An investment in JK is an investment in the K to 12 overall school system. That’s what we’re doing. Out of the $150 million that we distribute to the school boards, we’re using that funding to educate those individuals so that they can graduate and continue on to post-secondary.

Our research shows us that investment in early childhood of a child’s life has the greatest impact on their lifelong learning and part of their journey as children and grown-ups...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Let me start off by saying thank you to the Members for speaking up for JK. It is a very important subject of this Assembly. I am truly looking forward to the next business plans because I’m hearing that there will be an influx of funding for ECE. So I’m looking forward to that.

[English translation not provided.]

Mr. Speaker, in summarizing, as I stated in Tlicho, in a perfect world where resources are limited and there are no competing priorities, I would have asked for an additional $7.4 million to introduce a program as important as Junior Kindergarten and important to...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My department met with the school boards and called every school board to identify what their financial situation will be with each and every school board. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] I would like to tell the House about things that are coming up in our region in the Tlicho Nation. We have received a letter from the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission. We have received a letter from them, the Tlicho, and on the letter, Whati, Gameti, they have now opened an office for them and they will be representing disabled people and elders. They will also be able to support all the disabled people by providing the facilities for disabilities. So that will be happening in the Tlicho region.

I am the MLA, so I would like to recognize the work...

I’m glad the Member raised that profile. The department expects that YCS will not only look carefully at the cost of JK, $1.2 million, but also how they can restructure their overall programming in order to absorb the $436,000 that the Member referred to earlier, Member Bromley. This should not be an unreasonable undertaking given that their overall budget has consistently been around $18 million from this government to the school board. This is an area that can be absorbed.

The $436,000 represents approximately 2 percent of the overall budget. That’s where it’s at, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know how I can justify this, but the junior kindergarten that we’re rolling out into 23 communities and then going on to regional centres next year and the following year will be to Yellowknife. I’ve indicated in the House that my department will be working very closely with the daycare operators, day home operators and we will continue to subsidize them. We have done that.

Again, junior kindergarten is optional for the parents. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.