Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to follow up just briefly on that same topic. I think the Minister is clearly aware that the elders and chiefs of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation are very interested in having the Weledeh language being recognized as unique and having it considered for official language recognition, and they have been chatting about this for a good year now or longer. I am sure the elders have been at it longer. I am wondering how the Minister is entertaining and supporting this request. Thank you.
Minister Lafferty.
Mr. Chairman, this matter has been brought up by the Member earlier and we need to look at all aspects of how we recognize official language. We need to look at the linguistics of it. We need to look at the history of the language, where it came from and how many words are different from the Tlicho language.
Mr. Chairman, it can be complex, but this is a piece of work that is before us. I am working within my department with the language group. We need to gather more detailed information about the history and the linguistics of the language itself and the comparison with other closely related languages such as Tlicho, which is one of the official languages.
Mr. Chairman, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done on this. Any changes we make to official languages, of course, will be public consultation as well. All I can say at this point is we are working on this file at the preliminary stages, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, thanks for the Minister’s remarks. I think the Yellowknives Dene will appreciate that work and will be right there participating.
I just want to say, before I move on, that I am very pleased with about 15 percent increase to the budget for official languages and I want to recognize the Minister for carving out those dollars. I know there are many competing demands, so that extra $1.1 million is going to be an important contribution. I think we need it, obviously, to follow up on the new Languages Strategy.
I just had a quick question on inclusive schooling. We chatted about this quite a bit last year and it is a program that has been adapted in the Northwest Territories, as I understand from my questioning at that time. Because of findings elsewhere, we have never done the analysis to see if that actually applies in the Northwest Territories, where I think we are all prepared to recognize that we have a somewhat unique situation and, personally, I do question the applicability of the data elsewhere to our situation. I am wondering if the Minister has done any research. Has his staff done any research and evaluation of inclusive schooling, comparing it with the previous tradition, we will call it, in assessing student graduation rates in the Northwest Territories?
Deputy Minister Daniels.
Thank you. We haven’t done that type of evaluation at this point. I know the Inclusive Schooling Policy is based on the research, as the Member indicates, that is based outside the Northwest Territories. We have been having some internal discussions in the department about maybe looking at that and seeing how applicable that research is for our own particular circumstances in the North, given some of the concerns that we hear from people in the Northwest Territories. It is something we have been giving some consideration to and it might be something that we can follow up in terms of the work that we are doing under our school improvement projects and the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, as an example. Thank you.
I appreciate Mr. Daniels’ remarks. I am pleased to hear that those discussions are happening. I am not saying that we need to jump anywhere without the information. I am pleased to see the program go ahead until we have done that analysis, but I hope the department does decide to do it. Obviously, this is a key one. We want our students to graduate. I hear a lot of the anecdotal information, not exactly anecdotal, of specific cases where in the older system it seemed to work fine and I am sure there must be cases out there where it didn’t. I don’t hear about those, so it would be good to get some real, objective analysis of the information.
Just in terms of a question, does the Minister feel like we have the information available? Should we decide to do that analysis, do we have the data that we can look at to answer questions, to evaluate inclusive versus the more traditional approach in the Northwest Territories? Mahsi.
Minister of Education.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. We have to look at the whole system to see what we have, and I am sure we do have some information and we will have to gather that information and we will share with the Members. Mahsi.
Next I have Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of quick questions on the culture and heritage section. I understand, from your statement yesterday, that there is an additional $200,000 being put into the budget to help with some museum displays and I think that is great. I think that is fantastic. What I am curious about is, has there been any thought with these displays and with displays that already exist in the museum, whether they are in storage or whether they are out for public consumption, has there been any thought about travelling some of these shows around in southern Canada, maybe even other locations in the Northwest Territories, to give the people in the Northwest Territories an idea what is here, but more importantly, maybe partnering with Industry, Tourism and Investment to get some of those down south so that people can really see what is here?
The reason I bring it up is earlier this year, I guess it was later last year, I was at the museum and there was a fantastic display from Quebec in there; I think it was Quebec. It is a travelling show that goes from museum to museum to museum. It was great and there were a lot of people there to see it. I think we have some amazing displays up here, some amazing culture and if we can get those things travelled around a bit, I think it will turn peoples’ attention to the North. I think it is a great opportunity for a partnership between Industry, Tourism and Investment and Education, Culture and Employment. Has there been any thought about as we design our displays, can we make them so that we can travel them around to different jurisdictions? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. This specific funding increase is more specifically for the Northwest Territories, but we have discussed this already with the Member and we are open to the idea of having southern tours with our exhibits. I am working closely with the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, as well, to see if this could be an option or something that we can explore. This is a working document that we are currently exploring between the parties and we will keep Members posted on this matter. Mahsi.
Thank you. Thanks to the Minister for that. That is excellent. I think partnerships are important and I look forward to hearing more about that. In the design of these current displays, if you can start thinking about transportation, it might help all to the design to make travel in the future easier. Just a thought.
The other thing that I have a question about is, once upon a time we housed a significant number of artefacts and materials that I think were considered to be Nunavut’s and we were housing them at the museum and I think out at the warehouse as well. I have been told that a lot of that material has been shipped to Nunavut now. Can you confirm whether that is true or not? Are we still housing a significant amount of stuff for Nunavut or has it finally gone over, and if so, if we have sent it, what are we doing with all that space? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Deputy Minister Daniels.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have started sending stuff over to Nunavut. It has been a process of several years because it has taken them some time to come up with a facility of their own to accommodate this. I would have to check on the exact status of how much material we still have with us. The space that is becoming available, we are utilizing it for the purposes of what we have identified here in terms of exhibit development. We are undertaking work to develop more exhibits that are more reflective of what is the Northwest Territories, so we are developing exhibits that cover each of our regions, from the Beaufort-Delta to the Sahtu to the South Slave, the Tlicho. Each region of the Northwest Territories will be reflected in the exhibits that we are developing in the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Thank you.
Thank you. That sounds really good. I am just slightly confused. Does that mean some of that space is going to be used for exhibits itself? Does that mean we are actually going to have more exhibit space in the museum or does it mean it is where we can bring in our product from the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in, Tlicho and store it there and help us build more exhibits? Is it going to give us more places where people can see stuff or is it still going to be storage but it is going to enhance our existing locations where we are going to be building exhibits?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, the plan is to put the exhibits in the space that has been freed up as a result of the exhibits going over to Nunavut. So any space that we have, there will be different galleries. One might feature the Beaufort-Delta region, for example, and another might feature more of the Sahtu region. Each of the exhibits that we develop that reflect each of the regions of the Northwest Territories will be accommodated in that space that has been freed up. Thank you.
Thank you. That is excellent. I imagine that is a several-year project and that is not going to happen right away. Do we know what the $200,000 specifically is going to be used for? Do we know what display we are creating, which region is going to be represented with that $200,000?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will have to get the exact details on what is the priority, but we do have some right now that have been developed for some of the regions. So the ones that we don’t have displays developed for so far will be the next on our list. So whether it’s the Deh Cho or South Slave, we’ll have to check on the status of that. Thank you.
Next I have Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m not 100 percent sure this is exactly in the right section, but I can’t find another area for it. I just wanted to ask the Minister if he and his department have some sort of plan to address the issue of absenteeism. That’s been a topic where last year it was in the news where kids are losing a year by the time they’re getting halfway through elementary school just from being absent so much. So absenteeism is an issue that’s affecting the kids’ education levels when they finish grade 12 because people are continuing to pass through the system with their peers, so by the time they finish grade 12, if they miss a lot of school, they’re behind. I’m wondering if there’s any plan to address that specific issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I was just trying to get confirmation on that. I think there was a slight increase, not much, but a slight increase in enrolment. I think we are making some strides in that area where Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, a census was taken a year and a half ago. There’s been a recommendation that came forward for us to provide additional funding, which we’ve provided to the school boards to deal specifically with enrolment issues and concerns, and they’ve done what they can as a school board in their schools and in their community. I think that captured a slight increase in enrolment, which is great.
Yes, there is a plan with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative that’s currently in discussion right now and we have two more regions to attend. That particular issue has been brought up in each and every region, Mr. Chair. This is a serious matter and we’re very concerned, as well, but at the same time it’s going up a bit. So I think we’re doing the right things and we want to do more in that respect. There are more recommendations that are coming from the communities that we’ll take seriously into consideration. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.
Is enrolment and absenteeism essentially the same in this overall strategy? I understand the increase in enrolment of Aboriginal students would be something, but once they’re enrolled, what the Minister referred to as going up I’m assuming is that the absentee rates are going down. Is that the correct assumption, Mr. Chairman?
The information that we have is that through ASA, as well that we gave money to schools for attendance projects and absenteeism is definitely before us. But we did provide additional funding to deal with absenteeism. Again, it’s part of the ASA as we move forward. Mahsi.
On another topic, I’m wondering if in the culture and heritage I recently encountered a situation where there are youth that are catching on to the whole issue of hand games and hand games has become quite a major event in gatherings. In fact, it’s an event that’s not even tied to any meetings or anything; they’re just events on their own. They’re just having hand games. The government seems to feel that it’s an issue of maybe some gambling involved in the hand games, but I don’t see it that way. I think that the hand games would be nothing different as far as going and having a hockey tournament and having prize money for second and third, having ball tournaments and having prize money. I see hand games as something similar to that. So I’m having some difficulty getting the government to fund or to support youth groups out of Tu Nedhe that wish to attend hand games. Especially in Lutselk’e there’s the whole issue that they’re an isolated community. They’re either going to have to skidoo out or fly out at this time. You know, you can’t skidoo a bunch out of a community like that, and to fly is expensive for them to attend. So I’m wondering if this department has anything that they can use, any program that they can use to pay for or to support a group such as that. I’m not asking for 100 percent support, but some support along with other organizations that support hand games as a sporting event and very positive for the youth. Thank you.
Hand games have become a popular form of games in the communities, the traditional games. We as a department sponsor to some degree in association to hand games. We may not directly sponsor the hand game tournament.
As you know, I’ve been to a lot of hand games in the past and I guess one can see it as gambling, where money has been dispersed left and right. The perception is out there and we have to be careful as a Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We support the cultural preservation and what can we do to support that. If youth are getting involved with various hand game demonstrations, training that’s happening, we work with the school, because they receive funding as well pertaining to the cultural aspect. So this is an area that comes up.
Every time there’s a tournament they always ask for a donation across the Northwest Territories, and we’ve always referred them to the school boards because we provide funding to them. It’s just one of those things where they apply to all organizations hoping to get some money out of it, but as I stated, we have sponsored in some areas with respect to the hand game demonstrations, but this is an area that there’s been a lot of requests. We’ve been looking at this, how we can get around the system. But, Mr. Chair, we need to work with it and, again, I need to work with the organizations that we provide funding to. So we’ll continue to work with that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Next on my list is Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr, Chair. I have a couple of questions here. I’d like to ask, it references a contribution I think on the next pages, but I believe it falls in this section. In the last couple of years the department has made a grant or a contribution to the Food First Foundation, and from a letter, which I mentioned to the Minister of Health last week I think it was, it came from the Executive, it was on Executive letterhead but it was signed by the Minister of Education and it sounds as though, in the letter, as though the Food First Foundation will not receive any funding in the 2011-12 fiscal year. I’d like to know from the Minister if my interpretation of his letter is correct. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The money that was being referenced in the letter was the one-time money that was available in the current budget, the 2010-2011 budget. Certainly that funding does sunset on March 31st of 2011.
That’s rather distressing if this foundation is not going to receive any further funding. The Food First Foundation has received rave reviews from our schools. They have been doing excellent education work in terms of teaching the kids about healthy foods, what they should be eating, what they should not be eating. They’ve been providing foods in the schools and I think they’ve also been providing some education to our staff, as well, to help them to continue with that sort of education and awareness.
To the Minister: what is the department going to do to replace that work that the Food First Foundation has been doing? Who is going to do that work now as we go forward?
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. This, as the deputy stated, is the money that’s been identified last year and is going to be sunsetted. The organization that’s been delivering that have, of course, been doing good work in this area. We have to look at this from an interdepartmental perspective. It’s not just our department. I need to work closely with Health as well, and other organizations, I guess. The money has been run out at the end of this fiscal year. That’s where it’s at right now.
The Member is asking who is going to be delivering that. I’m sure that we provide funding through various programming to the schools to deliver things such as the breakfast program and other programs. I’m sure that will continue. In this specific area it’s unfortunate we couldn’t allocate the funding that was identified last year for next year. That’s where it’s at.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister but it is very concerning. There is a $400,000 line item in the budget which is going to sunset. The NWT nutritious food study, I presume that’s it. It bothers me in that we are again ignoring the issue or benefits of prevention and intervention at an early age. The Minister talked about working with other departments and cross-departmental. I have to say, as I’ve said a couple of times in the last week and a half, that early intervention from kids zero to age six at least helps in breaking the cycle of poverty. The department is talking about working with other departments but I don’t hear anything about working to try and break the cycle of poverty, to try and work within the development of an Anti-Poverty Strategy, which apparently is being developed. I think again we are thinking too small and too narrow. We need to rethink how we deliver these programs and services.
We’ve had $400,000 which is going to sunset. My question is: where is that money going to be spent now? Obviously it’s being spent because the budget for this department has increased not decreased from last year to this proposed budget year. It’s one thing to say that the schools have pots of funding where they can do these particular programs, but this was a program which was delivered with the schools, which provided research, which provided background, which provided mentorship for the schools to get into sort of healthy food education for our students. I really think this is a step backwards.
We have an organization that is fully willing to do this work pretty much on a volunteer basis and we’re basically telling them no, this is not important, we don’t really care what our kids eat, let’s just go back to the way that it was awhile ago. I’d like to hear from the Minister again where this $400,000 is going to be spent now, if it’s not being spent on healthy foods or healthy food initiatives. Again, apart from the schools having a pot of money to access, what are we actively doing as a government to make sure that our kids are educated relative to healthy foods?
That $400,000 is going to the schools for a Nutrition Program in the Northwest Territories. It will be expanded into the schools. I know this was an issue when we first brought that up were issued on administration, but I did commit the whole $400,000 to the schools in the communities. The schools, of course, can augment on the budget required for a school Nutrition Program by accessing other funds, as I indicated earlier.
I just want to break down that through government sources like Aboriginal Student Achievement, we have various programs that have been identified: Healthy Food for Learning, Drop the Pop, Together for Healthy Learning, and non-government sources such as Breakfast for Learning. We do have community councils, as well, band councils and also private sectors. So those are areas that we need to work with and we’ll continue to do that.
Just one last question, I guess. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not there was an evaluation done of this particular program that Food First Foundation was running. If the money is not going to Food First Foundation but it is going into the schools, what’s to guarantee that they’re going to use it for the same sort of program that Food First Foundation was running? Are we taking a program... If there was an evaluation done and it proved that the program was working well, why are we cancelling it?
I just again have to say that I think we’re missing the boat. The Minister mentioned four or five or six different programs which exist, but they all operate sort of independently. There’s no coordinated approach to prevention and education of our kids at an early age in all manner of things, and this is just one more opportunity for us to get them early and to get them learning the right things. The end result is we have healthier children and healthier adults and less of a drain on our health and social services system.
I guess I’d like to know from the Minister how he expects that this sort of, the same sort of thing that’s been provided by Food First Foundation, how is that going to be accomplished in the schools. I may have asked that question already but I still haven’t heard a decent answer.
Mr. Daniels.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The $400,000 that we’ve given to the Food First Foundation has gone out to the schools this year in 2010-2011, as the Minister said. While we haven’t done a detailed evaluation of this as it was a one-year project, there have been some concerns identified in terms of the increased workload it places on schools to administer programs, because it does require people to prepare the food and to also store the food in some cases, which might be a challenge in some schools. Those are some of the issues that have been highlighted. We do plan to continue to work interdepartmentally to support healthy choices and to teach food nutrition, as well as things like active living and healthy living overall. We do work interdepartmentally from that perspective. We do plan to continue to make sure that we’re sharing information on different programs and different supports that are available that could support things like nutrition programs and make sure that information is available to schools and other early childhood programs and other programs that require nutritional programs.
We’re on page 10-17, Education, Culture and Employment, activity summary, education and culture, operations expenditure summary, $190.945 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a couple quick questions on the Food First Foundation as well. First one is: have we been contributing to them over the last three years and how much?
Mr. Daniels.
Mr. Chairman, no, we haven’t. The Food First Foundation was actually a contractor. They won the contract to actually deliver the Nutrition Program last year. They were basically a contractor for us.
My last question is: do we expect this organization or business to continue in the absence of the support they had this year?
We’re certainly hoping they can. They’ve been inexistence for some time prior to us being involved with them through the contract arrangement. They’ve been getting funding from other sources in previous years. We have the expectation that they will continue.
My last question. I just want to confirm that the $400,000, all of that went to Food First Foundation for administration and delivery this year. Is that correct?
Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. That $400,000 did go to the schools in the communities.
Thank you for that information. How much went to Food First Foundation?
Mr. Daniels.
