Wendy Bisaro

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. The concerns of the students were heard loud and clear when we met with Yellowknife students a number of weeks ago. The value of an on-campus daycare at a training venue is something which I want to make sure that the Minister has understood. So in Fort Smith, for instance, if there was an on-campus daycare, I would imagine that the funding for the Childcare Funding Subsidy Program could be put into an on-campus daycare, and it probably wouldn’t cost all that much more to get that established. It would also provide a venue to train our...

Thanks to the Minister. I look forward to that information. I’d like to ask the Minister, in terms of daycare and the opportunities to provide daycare on campus and for our students, I’d like to know if the Minister is willing to review with the Aurora College Board and the Aurora College president the benefits of on-campus daycare. Will he commit to establishing a daycare if only at one campus in Fort Smith where we currently have our Early Childhood Education program?

This government has a stated goal to increase our focus on early childhood development programming. We have a brand new revised early childhood framework. Daycare centres at our college campuses would fit nicely into actions coming from that framework. Is it doable? Absolutely. Will it happen? I challenge the Aurora College to make it so. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I look forward to hearing sooner rather than later, I hope, that the college is willing to look at developing on-campus daycares. Certainly, if there are not enough students with children on campus to fill a daycare, I’m sure that the rest of the community would fill it up.

If the Minister or if the college can’t establish an on-campus daycare, as I mentioned in my statement, there are a couple of daycares in Nunavut where the spaces are reserved for college students. So I’d like to know if the Minister would consider that.

Will the college, will ECE...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are also addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement about college daycares and the need for our students to have some place to put their children while they go to school.

There certainly is a lack of affordable daycare for students. As I mentioned, it keeps them in a financial hole and I think it keeps many of them in poverty. It’s not where our students should be if we expect them or want them to gain learning and to gain accreditation and get good jobs.

I’d like to start off by asking...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to address the lack of daycare facilities at our Aurora College campuses. In the NWT we have Aurora College and the government is rightly proud of providing post-secondary education to our residents so they can achieve a higher education in their home territory. NWT residents can, and do, enrol in the many Aurora College programs, and with hard work and effort they can graduate successfully. That is unless they are parents and need child care.

None of our three Aurora College campuses has daycare on site. Students who have little or no family support in...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am sure that I move that we report progress.

---Carried

I guess I have to say to the Minister that that doesn’t give me much comfort. What is the purpose of negotiating a price? What is the purpose of having a guaranteed contract if there is no guarantee that we won’t go over cost?

I understand that there are still a number of financial elements that are being negotiated that haven’t yet been finalized. I would like to ask the Minister what elements of the project are still under negotiation and have yet to be finalized. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to address my questions today to the Minister of Transportation. I understand that we finally have a signed contract for the construction of the Inuvik-Tuk highway. Apparently it is a guaranteed price. I am very glad to hear that, but I am extremely skeptical that this project will be completed in the allotted budget.

I would like to ask the Minister of Transportation, first of all, knowing that any project endures changes to its original project description, what exists in this contract to protect the GNWT from cost overruns due to change orders as the...