Tom Beaulieu

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to talk about school absenteeism in the smaller aboriginal communities. Mr. Speaker, our dedicated educators in the smaller communities are continually faced with the challenges of getting students to attend school on a regular basis. There are many factors outside the school that contribute to this very serious problem. On this front, I know that community education councils in these communities are doing the best they can to address the issue. However, Mr. Speaker, there are many other community...

I thank the Minister for that response, and the department. There is a Dene Yati program in Fort Resolution that I am proud to see going in the school. It was very good. The Minister and I travelled to the community to the school and the kids were coming up to us and speaking Chipewyan, of course. I understand what they were saying. The kids are actually able in the community -- and I don’t think it’s happened in a little while -- to walk up to you and speak very clearly and express themselves clearly and accurately in the Chipewyan language. However, this program is not in the school in...

I am not 100 percent clear on what that exactly means. I wonder if the Minister could just explain to me, in layman’s terms, exactly what that funding will do in the small communities.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am okay to wait until we get to detail and get to the item on the right page.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was on the literacy tour in the South Slave with the Minister. I think that all indications are that if the students were attending school better than 90 percent of the time, we would probably be higher than functional grade level, actually. Would the Minister look at re-profiling some money to address the absenteeism issue with the district education authorities, from the department to the district education authorities? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, again, from the information that the Minister does have in the department, does the Minister agree that the more education a person has, the greater the potential a person has for employment and higher income?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize my mother, Annie, and my sister Louise.

Mr. Chairman, just switching gears for a second here and recognizing that library services in this area are really intended for community libraries, I am interested in if some sort of program could be put in place where this function, this task or activity I guess, could be expanded to support the library in a school. Right now, in Lutselk’e, there is no library and there is apparently a very good library in the Deninu Kue School in Fort Resolution. However, there is no library at all in Lutselk’e. I think it’s essential. Again, recognizing that this is a community library area and I’m not...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think those are all good initiatives. Is any of it going directly into supporting... The issue I have in one of the daycares is location, like to somehow bring the daycare into or close to the school. The other issue is staff complement. They are not able to support as many preschoolers as they would like to because they don’t have the money to hire the staff. So just a direct question if any of that funding is going directly into daycares.

Thank you, M. Chairman. Just a couple of questions I have here. I notice that the early childhood development budget has gone up quite a bit, quite substantially, actually. I am wondering if the Minister could advise me if there is any of the extra money going to support daycares in Tu Nedhe communities of Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e. I talk about the students and even the absenteeism and then I get information from the schools and I am aware that kids going through a good daycare program have better success early when they start school, better success K to 12, especially better success in...