Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in March of 2022 I delivered a similar Member's statement on the sorry, reading being a privilege, and or sorry, not being a privilege and being a human right. Jeez, I need to focus here, sorry. And so yes, Mr. Speaker, I've considered the importance of literacy, and I share the Member's concerns.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's been routine reviews of this program over the years, and it's one that the department keeps a close eye on knowing how important it is to seniors across the territory. In addition, in the last two years there have been one time topups acknowledging the additional cost of fuel across the territory and how that has an impact to seniors. And so ECE's been able to by kind of taking dollars from other programs, put them into this program to be able to serve seniors as best as possible. That being said, Mr. Speaker, I will also continue to work to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this question because I think it's important for everybody to hear. If something goes to an MLA and comes to me and then from me, it goes to a deputy minister and down the chain and then makes its way to the school board and then to the school, I really encourage people to start by having these conversations with the school about what their child needs. If they're not getting a response from the school, all of our schools have education bodies with elected officials that are there to serve our residents as well. If an education body is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for raising this. And, unfortunately, ECE does not have this type of data. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my role as Minister of ECE within the college is oversight over the post-secondary system for the whole entire NWT. The Aurora College board of governors is responsible for the oversight of the operational matters of the college. So even that being said, ECE does still provide funding dollars for this work to get done. We -- I do have meetings with the chair of the board of governors so that they can identify to me what their priorities are as a board and so that we can work together in order to provide them with support that they do need that is...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. I guess what I can say is just some facts around some funding that has been received by the college. So through CIRNAC, the college did receive $8 million. In addition to that -- so, first of all, those monies were for planning through community and Indigenous government engagement and grants transformation, the centre for research excellence pilot, and also the Western Arctic Research Centre infrastructure. Those being the largest initiatives. So through that, the capital investment of the warehouse was $2.53...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Not everybody living with a disability in the territory would need income support. But those who apply and those who meet the criteria, absolutely would receive income support. And so I encourage anybody who is in a situation where they need some additional supports, to contact their client navigator or work with their MLA as well in order to receive that contact information. Because, absolutely, we want to make sure that we're supporting residents to the best of our ability. Thank you.

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely, the client navigators will work in order to access that information through the CRA. Unfortunately, that information's not available until after June in that existing year and so there might be some information that the client navigators want to source for the existing month that they're in, so they might need to work with the resident in order to get that existing information. But absolutely, they can work with the resident in order to access that information through Canada Revenue Agency as well. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, currently all of our regional district education councils and district education authorities each have their own literacy programs that they employ within their schools. In addition to that, our NWT adapted curriculum, through our English language arts curriculum, is also conducive to pedagogy for learning to read for our NWT students as well. ECE does plan to transition the adapted NWT version to BC's school curriculum and the implementation of BC's large-scale assessment tools as well. And these will be an integral part of improving student...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in 2012 was the first program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies Literacy Survey. And the second such survey, in order to provide kind of the second baseline of what that would look like, was launched in 2022. Unfortunately, at that time it was identified that it would cost around $5 million for the territories across Canada to participate in that survey. So the three territories did not participate in the survey. And currently CMEC, along with Statistics Canada and the organization for economic cooperation and development and the three...