Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am in support of this motion. I think my comments yesterday indicated that I believe very strongly that we need to put more effort, more consideration, more design into our early childhood development budget. The department is set on implementing junior kindergarten, and that’s fine. It’s a good program. I don’t have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that we are not putting the same focus on our zero to three children, and we need to put more money into that area. Other Members have spoken to the benefit that we get from focusing on zero to three, so...

So is there money in the supplementary reserve at this time? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think my time is up.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions here. I’ll start with the numbers on page 39. There’s been about an $800,000 increase in the budget for Aurora College from this current budget year to…sorry, the academic year to the next academic year. Can I understand what this increased funding is for? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that info. I’m struck by the Minister saying that the school boards will be involved. I would hope that in doing any review that there would have been some canvassing of the people that are providing programs and running inclusive schooling. If that hasn’t been done then I have to say I can’t put much credence in the report or the review that is coming forward.

I’d like to ask a question about the amount of school contributions. On page 10-17 if I look at the ‘14-15 Main Estimates it indicates about $131.7 million and yet I go to the next page and education authority...

Thank you to the Minister for that. If you’re talking about this, I guess I’d like to get some sense of where the department is wanting to go on this, and secondly, are you in conversation with the school boards at the same time that you’re discussing it?

Thank you. I guess I would ask the Minister, once they have evaluated these two JK projects that were ongoing in ’13-14 if committee could be apprised of the results of the evaluation. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, that’s good. That’s all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee would like to continue with Tabled Document 22-17(5), NWT Main Estimates 2014-14, continuing with Education, Culture and Employment and, time permitting, Transportation and then Environment and Natural Resources. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I just wanted to comment on the funding for Skills Canada. I’m very pleased to see that there. I think that this is an excellent program. The department, I think, recognizes that it is as well. I think it’s only been expanding over the last number of years. We’ve gone from $35,000 from 2012-13 and we skipped last year and we now have $70,000 in 2014-15. The Skills Canada group have been doing a great deal to expand into all areas of the territory outside of just Yellowknife. I think that’s a great program that we are back to funding. I was going to ask a question on the small...