Wendy Bisaro

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...

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, Mr. Speaker. I understand that there are risks. My concern is that these risks are out there. Once bitten, twice shy. I went through the bridge project, as did the Minister of Transportation, so I think he knows why I am a little circumspect.

I would like to ask the Minister, knowing that this is a big project, knowing it’s going on for a number of years, if he will be providing updates to Members and to the general public as the project progresses. Will he let us know not only how many kilometres have been completed, but an accounting of how much has been spent and whether the...

Thanks to the Minister for that response. The Minister mentions a small contingency, but I didn’t hear him reference basically what would happen if we get a number of change orders and we have used up that small contingency. What then occurs if we have more change orders or we have more cost overruns that are required? What exists in the contract that can guarantee to me, as a Member overseeing this project and looking after the finances of the government, what exists in that contract that will make me feel better about the fact that we are not going to have cost overruns? Thank you.

Even though the Government of Canada has refused to take this action to split Bill C-15 once already, I urge the government and its Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Northern Affairs to reconsider and to take action to divide Bill C-15. As I often say, it’s the right thing to do. Let’s do the right thing. Thank you.