Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to address some further questions to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The Minister knows that we have eight communities in the NWT who have Aboriginal Head Start programs.

I’d like to ask the Minister why he does not recognize how valuable these eight preschools are, why does he not recognize how successful they are, how much better prepared Aboriginal Head Start students are than non-Aboriginal Head Start kids when they get to kindergarten? Why does he not accept the value of the Aboriginal Head Start programs, work in concert with them, and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is our last day of session before April 1, 2014, the last day in this House before a very significant day and date in the history of the NWT, and I don’t mean April Fool’s Day, Mr. Speaker.

On April 1, 2014, we will receive control over our lands and resources. That power will be devolved from the federal government to the NWT government. It is indeed an historic date, one which will be remembered and celebrated in the future.

It’s been a long time coming – decades, in fact – and this transfer is the result of the hard work of many, many people, GNWT staff in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will try to make it short, but I want to say to the Minister, I am not saying don’t implement junior kindergarten. To my colleagues, I am not saying that junior kindergarten should not go to small communities. I am saying we have communities where we have a program that is viable, that is successful and why are we forcing another junior kindergarten into those communities where we already have Aboriginal Head Start where it is active and viable and would be happy to take on more four-year-olds? Thank you.

I am very glad that the Minister knows those programs exist, and I hope he knows how valuable they are. I’d like to ask the Minister whether he knows how many four-year-olds live in each community where junior kindergarten will start in September of 2014.

Does the department know how many spaces will be needed in those 29 communities where junior kindergarten will be started? Has there been any analysis of the number of four-years-olds that exist in each community, and have they considered using the Aboriginal Head Start programs to offer junior kindergarten instead of starting a brand new...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to keep the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment going up and down for another few minutes yet. I would like to return to the issue that I discussed with the Minister yesterday and that’s the impact of junior kindergarten on the Aboriginal Head Start program.

Yesterday I mentioned it was a federally funded program fully funded by the federal government. The Minister, in answering my colleague’s question, I didn’t really get a sense that he understands. He referenced a number of communities that don’t have daycare; he referenced the need to put junior...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This weekend NWT youth, their coaches and chaperones will have packed their bags. They will gather their sports equipment and board planes to travel to Fairbanks, Alaska, for the 2014 Arctic Winter Games. This event, held every two years in the circumpolar region, is the Olympics of the North and it’s a big deal for NWT people.

The focus of the Arctic Winter Games is still the same today as it was in 1970 and I want to quote from the Sport North website, it is, “to involve as many athletes as possible either in the Games themselves or in the team trials, and to provide a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We would like to consider Tabled Document 4-17(5) and Bill 18. Thank you.

To the Minister, I am not saying that junior kindergarten is not a good program and I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be implemented. What I am saying is we have eight Aboriginal Head Start programs in eight communities in the NWT. The impression that is being given to both school boards and to the Aboriginal Head Start Council, from my understanding, is that junior kindergarten will be in the schools. The four-year-olds will go to school; the four-year-olds will not go to any other programming. This is not daycare, Mr. Speaker. This is a preschool play program and it is an extremely valuable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to follow up on some questions that were asked earlier in the week by my colleagues from Hay River, particularly Mr. Bouchard, who spoke about some of the potential impacts on junior kindergarten, sorry, the impacts of junior kindergarten on other preschool programs. In both Hay River and Yellowknife, we have viable preschool programs and the one I want to specifically refer to is the Aboriginal Head Start program. The Junior Kindergarten Program is going to have a huge impact on...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I, too, want to thank the mover and the seconder for bringing this motion forward. Like Minister Miltenberger, I felt we had a very vigorous and very long debate last fall and it was one of the best debates I think I’ve ever heard since I’ve been here.

I stated then that the status quo was not an option for me. What we have basically in front of us in terms of Bill 18 is status quo and I can’t support the status quo. For me there are probably three main reasons why.

The riding of Monfwi is grossly under-represented and we’ve known that for quite some time and the bill as...