Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My department met with the superintendents of all regions and those 23 communities are rolling out their junior kindergarten programming. Part of the package will be for them to utilize the PTR, the funding that will be allocated towards the Junior Kindergarten Program. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, those are the discussions that we need to have. I am going to Fort Providence and I will be meeting with that organization.

We have to keep in mind that you’re talking about eight communities. I am responsible for 33 communities and I want to deliver the most effective programming, that’s JK, into the communities. JK is based on Dene Kede and Inuinnaqtun curriculum that recognizes northern culture. It makes learning experimental.

This is the curriculum the program came out with. We have to make it a success in the communities. That’s what I’m committed to. In Fort Providence and...

At the end of the day, the Members are asking me to go after new funding which, obviously, we don’t have. I do not have that in my back pocket. The GNWT doesn’t have it. Again, it’s the words of the Finance Minister that we have to be innovative, live within our means and exercise fiscal prudence, the public money, to take a hard look at where we spend our money and if we do better by re-profiling part of it. We’ve done that. My department has done that. We will continue to work with the school boards to make it a very successful project.

I believe it was in my Minister’s statement, as well, that if we delay junior kindergarten in those communities, obviously it will be detrimental to those individuals, whether they are four-year-olds in the communities.

Aboriginal Head Start has been very successful, but we have to keep in mind that I represent the whole Northwest Territories and I represent the population of the Northwest Territories. That’s the reason why we’re going forward as part of the option to deliver those programs into the communities that will benefit this JK. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I tabled the fact sheets. I made a statement on the fact sheets, all the information that we received by the school boards. There are always numbers changing. Sometimes it’s out of my hands. At the same time, the latest information that I received, I shared that with the general public through the Legislative Assembly and…(inaudible)…we are working with.

This is an area that we’ve been working very close with NCS, identifying the capital projects, and they’ve submitted proposals to our shop, the GNWT, through ECE, and we’ve been working very closely with Heritage Canada, as well, because they provide the capital expenditures. Those are some of the discussions that we are currently having with the federal government on behalf of NCS. At the same time, NCS, the CEO is also advocating with the federal government, as well, so at both angles we’re pushing the federal government. We’ll do what we can to push that even further.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As this House knows, I am a true supporter of anything that contributes to the health and strength of our Aboriginal languages. NCS, the Native Communications Society, is valuable and also contributes towards this.

Again, there is no doubt that those talented individuals have worked for the society, as well, and learned from NCS over the years. We fully support that as government, for their contributions over the years.

The Member does put in a very interesting idea about how we can move forward on providing the training to these northern broadcasters. I have instructed my...

Mr. Speaker, last week I informed the Assembly that officials from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment would be meeting with officials from the two Yellowknife education authorities to compare financial numbers about junior kindergarten. I would like to advise the Assembly of the results of those meetings because I think they confirmed that there is a lot of incorrect information floating around about junior kindergarten.

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be too much opinion and not enough facts about junior kindergarten, which is why I tabled a detailed fact package in the Assembly...

We are re-profiling; we aren’t cutting the budget. So the $7.4 million, as indicated, it is being rolled out to all the school boards to implement junior kindergarten. Those are the areas we have been working with the school boards and we will continue to make that a success. The junior kindergarten has been under discussion through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, Early Childhood Development. This is where we’re at today. We’ve done a lot of research, and research is telling us this is the best way to go. The 16 to 1, at this point we are at 13.8 to 1. When we start implementing...

Again, the fact package does cover that detailed information. In 2014-15 for YCS, $277,000 will be deducted from YCS budget out of the $7.4 million that we’ve been talking about re-profiling through PTR. In 2015-16 another $467,000 is meant to be deducted from their budget. In 2016-17 another $393,000 estimated to be deducted. So it’s a total of $1.137 million. This reduction will be offset with an increase of $960,000 funding from ECE through formula funding to support implementation of JK, resulting in an overall reduction over three years of $177,000. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.