Thanks for the response from the acting DM. I guess my concern with a modified program is, you know, if we put the emphasis on early childhood, whether it be preschool or child care, daycares, playschool-type activity or facilities, and we have teachers and assistants in that facility working with the kids and if they are not taking a course that’s fairly rigorous and that gives them a high level of skill, I would think that we’re kind of cutting off our nose to spite our face in that we’re not getting the best we can for the kids in this program.

I don’t know why the program has been modified...

Page 7-18, Public Works and Services, activity summary, information item, asset management, active positions. Seeing no questions we will move on. Page 7-21, Public Works and Services, activity summary, Technology Service Centre, operations expenditure summary, $1.361 million.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of questions. This section covers quite a bit, so I may jump around a little. I would like to first of all ask about – and this might have been asked before and I apologize if it has – the Early Childhood Development Program which is under education and culture.

Thank you, committee. Mr. Abernethy, could you introduce your witnesses for the record, please?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Maybe you should advise… Oh, the clerk is looking after your earpiece item. Mr. Abernethy, I think the question is where do these numbers show up elsewhere in the budget. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the directorate deals with document management and so on. The government is implementing an electronic records and document management system, I believe. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment deals with requests for fairly sensitive material I think in some cases relative to a residential school, students and so on. When the Information and Privacy Commissioner made her report a couple of months ago to committee, there was a concern on her part that the government is not necessarily always being as judicious as we should be in looking after our...

Alright, committee, we will come back to order. Minister Abernethy, do you have some witnesses you’d like to bring into the House?

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Lewis.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of comments as well. Some of them are going to be repetitive, but I think they bear repeating.

At the outset, I want to say that I’m dismayed about the lack of progress in the department on reducing our graduation rates. I feel that the department is doing a lot of really good things. We have a lot of projects on the go, but they don’t seem to be all that coordinated, and in my estimation, we’re not spending enough, we don’t put enough emphasis on basic education. Whether it be preschool, whether it be K to 12, even, I think, advanced education. I think...