Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one other question that I forgot earlier around the Student Financial Assistance program, and certainly it has been mentioned a number of times over the years that I have been here. It seems to be, up to this point, the department has basically said no, we can’t do it, but I am referring to students who leave high school, who are not ready yet to go on to a post-secondary institution, no matter what it might be, whether it be a technical institution or whether it might be a college or a university. They require some upgrading of the courses that they have...

Thanks to Mr. Heide. I appreciate that there’s an appetite. I appreciate that some stuff is being looked at. But apart from conflicting policies, there still needs, in my mind, to be a review of how we provide our income security programs, all of them, whether they are in step with the rest of the country, whether they are serving our clients to the best that we can do. I think there are certainly areas where they are not. Some of them are contradictory polices, but some of them are policies which don’t conflict with anybody else but they’re just probably not up to date, and they’re probably...

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

---Carried

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions here. I’ve been asking the Minister questions about income assistance and trying to highlight some of the inconsistencies that exist with the income assistance/income security division. In his response, as the Minister has talked about possibly making some changes, it’s not been clear to me what sort of changes the Minister is talking about.

I’m advocating for a comprehensive review of all of our income support or income security programs. The Minister has advised that there have been some changes in 2015 already, and I’m not clear on what those...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to follow through on the early childhood but I’ll leave that, I think. No, I have to ask the question again. The certificate that we are currently issuing through Aurora College for early childhood educators, how portable is that to other jurisdictions within Canada?

In the absence of that information, I’m not sure if this question will also be able to be answered. It’s my understanding that the program delivered by Aurora College doesn’t meet national standards for sure. I don’t know if it meets the standards in any other Canadian jurisdiction besides the NWT. If somebody is educated and receives an early childhood diploma or certificate, whatever it is that we produce through Aurora College, how portable is that certificate or that diploma when they go to another jurisdiction, Alberta or Ontario or Quebec for instance? How does our program stack up...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m going to continue on with some questions about daycare from where Mr. Dolynny left off. With regard to the review, it’s going to be completed fairly soon, I gather. The end of the month, I think I heard the DM say. I asked some questions of the Minister, I can’t remember, within the last couple of weeks, in the House about consultation and what consultation was undertaken for this review. I asked the Minister if operators had been consulted, and I think he advised yes. Then I asked who those operators were. Can I get, from the Minister or the department, an indication...

It boggles my mind. I don’t think I’ve heard of any of these except maybe the scholarship program. It makes me wonder why we have a trust fund. But I’ll accept that explanation as it is.

I have a question with regards to the Healthy Food for Children and Youth. I’m glad to see this is in here. I think it’s a program that started in this budget year and is carrying on next year. It states that its contributions to the schools for the purchase of healthy and nutritious food. One of the things that I hear quite regularly is that it’s all well and good to provide funding for food to schools, but it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just a question as to process. If the bill is not ready for tabling in May/June, it then will not be able to go through our process before the Assembly is dissolved and an election takes place. So when the Minister says he’s tabling, maybe he could explain what that means.

What is he tabling and what does that mean in terms of a bill coming forward and actually processing through and getting passed at some point? Thank you.

Thanks to Mr. Lovely. My other question here has to do with the early childhood program, and it’s gone down about $700,000. Could I get an explanation as to why that’s reduced so much and is that $700,000 added in someplace else?