I’ll look forward to that. I’m not on Social Programs, although it’s a keen interest, obviously, so I would appreciate that information.
I have a few comments on the early childhood development and learning and I believe that includes junior kindergarten, some I would almost say diabolically so. What proportion of the $8.2 million is going to the Junior Kindergarten Program this year? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that, we’ll go to Ms. Martin.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you please repeat the question?
We can. Mr. Bromley, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Of the early childhood development and learning, the $8.243 million, the top line, I’m wondering what amount is going to the implementation of junior kindergarten.
The $8.2 million for early childhood development learning in these main estimates does not include the junior kindergarten. The junior kindergarten is right now under the school contributions in this budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, I appreciate that information. That is the larger one there, $131 million. Could I just find out what amount we are putting into junior kindergarten this year? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We will just give the department a second to figure that one out. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We have been talking about rolling out the program, phase one, two and three approach. We are at around $7 million over a three-year period. Mahsi.
Mr. Chair, I guess maybe I will go somewhere else here for a minute and maybe come back to that.
What I’m hearing from people in the field, so to speak, that are delivering programs related to this sort of thing, I’m looking at early childhood development and so on, there’s a great concern as I think we have already heard that attention will be…because there’s not extra funding being provided for this, attention will be taken away from those with special needs and other categories of students that require a particular amount of attention. They tell me that really it’s not so big a deal in the small communities because there is a small number of students there, so it won’t be a big impact and there is a very high per capita investment in small communities, both of those compared to the larger centres and in particular Yellowknife where there is a very large number of students. We know that the net funding will be negative, for example, for YK1, and at the same time, it will be accepting 120 new students.
An example I have heard that the Four Plus program at Weledeh school for example, a very important program. I’m sure the Minister would agree. For young children that are referred by public health or are coming from a socially disadvantaged situation, and again a great concern that that program will suffer because of the junior kindergarten, so the net benefits, again, will be low. Could the Minister explain to me again how that is going to be looked after without any investment whatsoever in the larger centres like Yellowknife? Thank you.
Mr. Chair, the Member talked about those individual children with special needs. Obviously, we are currently reviewing inclusive schooling. That’s a particular program to focus on those individuals with special needs. We’ll do what we can through the review process to capture those individuals even more, strengthening the programming itself. That is currently under review.
Also, the Member talked about the community delivering age four programming and other programming. We are currently introducing junior kindergarten for four-year-olds. This is an area that we feel that it could be utilized in the school system because there is low enrolment throughout the Northwest Territories, more specifically in Yellowknife as well. Those are some of the areas that we have targeted that we can work with the schools and work with the school boards.
Through the engagement, the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, early childhood development engagement on that, educational renewal, we have heard over and over that we need to start from a very young age. This is an area that research has told us to focus on the junior kindergarten area. This is the best way to go. Through the research that we have conducted, we feel that we need to move forward.
We have heard from Members, also, that there are some students who are entering kindergarten. Some can’t spell or read or verbally they can’t communicate due to the fact that we need to start even younger. That is an area that we are working very closely with the Department of Health and Social Services. Part of the focus, of course, early childhood is a very healthy programming is zero to three. We are working closely with them on that. We want to capture all realms. This is a four-year-old that we are going to capture. Mahsi.
Mr. Chair, I’m just about out of time; I have to get back on the list here. I’m hearing from professionals that there are concerns that there are programs already in place for four-year-olds’ special needs type situations. Given the lack of investment in these added responsibilities in large centres like Yellowknife will, in fact, cause the resources to be attracted away from these important special needs four-year-old programs such as the Four Plus program at Weledeh school. I’m just telling the Minister. At this point, I’m hoping that he will be very alert to that. I hope he is recognizing the strident calls from all quarters to invest in this, rather than take away resources and use them. There may be some degree of that that is warranted.
I agree with the Minister that there are some potential gains to be had here that the evidence suggests, not as much as the zero to three but the Minister has decided to shoot his target at four-year-olds. So be it, but there are some overwhelming studies and evidence that says only if it is a high quality program delivered by fully trained ECE workers. Can the Minister tell me that every small community will have at least one fully trained, fully qualified up to federal standards, not our lower standards, ECE workers before the community program goes in?
Mr. Chair, obviously that is our overall goal and objective, to have qualified people to look after our most vulnerable children under their care. Currently, we work with the college. Obviously, Members have stated that we should be delivering a high-class early childhood development certification diploma or degree program. That is an area we are currently focusing on as a long-term plan. Currently, we have some stats on number of individuals that are working within the early childhood programming that have either certification, diploma, degrees, even teacher degrees. Mind you, some of them do not have those credentials. We are going to focus on those individuals, if we can have professionals working with them. Those are some of the areas that we have highlighted. We are fully aware of it. We want highly trained professionals to deal with our vulnerable children in our school system. We are, as the Member indicated, fully alert of these different professions that should be looking after our kids. We are working at that. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Bromley, I put you back on the list, as you indicated. Just to give Members an idea, we have Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Moses in the order. We will go to Ms. Bisaro.
Mr. Chair, as Mr. Bromley stated, this is a huge section. I appreciate that you are allowing us to come back and ask different sets of questions, because there is every one of these three sections we could spend a good five minutes on.
It’s kind of hard for me to know where to start, but I think I’ll start with some questions about the junior kindergarten, and I’ll follow up where Mr. Bromley left off, to a certain extent.
I read the activity descriptions and I look at the early childhood development and learning division, and it states program and curriculum development for children from early childhood through to Grade 3, and then under education operations and development division it talks about delivery of education for K to 12. There’s a bit of an overlap there and I’m a little confused about that overlap to begin with, but the other thing that I am not sure about is whether the department considers junior kindergarten to be an early childhood development initiative or whether they consider it to be an education school development. I’ve heard it placed in both places. It’s being funded out of school contributions, we’ve been told tonight, and yet I really am not sure where the department thinks it sits, so I’ll start with that, the contradiction in grades and just where does the department place junior kindergarten from a pedagogical perspective.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. As you’re aware, we were going through the Early Childhood Development Framework. The action plan has been developed, and part of the action plan, obviously, will capture the junior kindergarten. I understand where the Member is coming from. Where would it be situated, because we are currently using the PTR as part of the school contribution, so there’s ECD Action Plan, part of the recommendations brought to our attention, so junior kindergarten would capture that. At the same time, we are having this school contribution as part of PTR to offset the costs of introducing junior kindergarten. After a three-year period, the funding flow to the school boards will be based on the actual enrolment of those individuals that are in the junior kindergarten. Once that is taken into effect, I guess, at that time it will be part of the school contribution organization. That’s where it’s at right now. We’re at the preliminary stages at this point but we are moving forward in those two spectrums of ECD and school contributions, because the money has to come from PTR, but after a three-year period it will be part of the school contribution.
Thanks to the Minister. I have to say that I’m really concerned that we are not placing junior kindergarten where I believe it rightly belongs, in early childhood development. Placing it within the schools, albeit junior kindergarten is play-based and kindergarten will become more play-based, and again, from a pedagogical perspective, it’s probably going to be taught differently, but putting it into schools and treating it like schools is, in my mind, quite dangerous, and I think there’s an opportunity for schools to treat junior kindergarten not like early childhood education but to treat it like school education, and that’s not where we want to go.
In terms of the funding, and this is just a minor thing, but I don’t understand why you can’t internally take the money from K to 12 PTR but place it in early childhood development. Just to say that it’s coming out of school contributions and after the three years to say that it’s absolutely going to be part of school contributions, again, just in my mind, contributes to the mindset that junior kindergarten is school, it’s not early childhood development, and again, I’m really concerned about that.
The other thing that I have to say about junior kindergarten, and Mr. Bromley kind of alluded to it, but I am very concerned that we don’t have… I know it’s early yet. It’s the end of February, and we’re talking about September, but still, I’m very concerned that we will not have qualified early childhood educators in our JK classrooms. Teachers are not early childhood educators. Not all of them. Some of them are if they’re specialized in that specialization. Music teachers are specialists. Early childhood educators are specialists. I think we are not quite prepared to properly teach junior kindergarten because we don’t have the early childhood educators that we need for these classrooms. I know that teachers are flexible and you can take a teacher and move them from one grade to another. You could probably take a kindergarten teacher and put them into a JK classroom and they would be fine, but you can’t take a Grade 3 teacher and do the same and expect them to fully understand early childhood education. There’s a difference between teaching elementary, teaching primary and early childhood.
I share Mr. Bromley’s concern, and he has asked the Minister if we’re going to have fully qualified to federal standards early childhood educators in our classrooms, and I didn’t hear from the Minister that we will. I heard that that’s where we want to go, what we want to have, but I didn’t hear from the Minister that that’s what we will have in September, and I again have to express some concerns about the quality of junior kindergarten that we’re going to be presenting to our small communities. We constantly say the small communities don’t get the same quality of education as the larger centres, and if we start off with that kind of, you know, well, it’s okay, we’ll make do with what we have, then we’re never going to get them up to the level where we think they should be. That’s a major concern for me.
I’d like to ask the Minister, I think I have heard in our conversations and debates that we’ve had to date, but I think I have heard that we’ve got spaces in our schools in our small communities now so we can just put junior kindergarten into the schools. That may be, and I’d like to know if the intent is to have a stand-alone junior kindergarten classroom in the schools where JK is going to be starting.
We are serious about qualifications, as well, for those professions that will be looking after our children, and junior kindergarten teachers obviously will be required to have the same basic qualifications as K to 12 NWT teachers. Most NWT teachers have a minimum of a Bachelor of Education degree, so that’s what we’re striving for, also the undergraduate degree in a specialized area, and a master’s degree. All junior kindergarten teachers will be required to be registered under the department’s ECE NWT teacher certification. The Member alluded to if there is going to be such training. All junior kindergarten teachers as well as kindergarten teachers of five-year-olds will receive training, resources, materials needed to deliver new NWT four to five-year-old kindergarten curriculum as early as this spring. In May and June 2014, those teachers will be identified by their educational authorities to receive such training. Another one will be offered, once we roll out the program in September, for those teachers that may be new to the NWT or have missed the spring session.
Those are just some of the areas that we will be conducting. We are looking at some of the schools as we realize the 29 schools do not have licenced child care programming, and we want to have those junior kindergarten with the kindergarten class, as well, because it’s play-based, and we’re going to have those qualified individuals working with them as teachers and then providing additional training that is required for those individuals so they can look after our children. We’re doing what we can to have those professionals in the field, and if we don’t have them then we’re going to provide that training.
Again, we are working with the college. This is over a three-year period and then on a long-term basis. We will be working closely with the college and with Health and Social Services and other agencies such as licenced child care operators and so forth. We will be providing those qualified teachers to look after our kids.
Unfortunately, Minister, that doesn’t give me any comfort at all. What I heard you say is that we’re going to require the same certification as other teachers, and what I am trying to say is that early childhood educators do not require the same certification as teachers. They may require a degree, but they require a degree in early childhood education, they don’t require a degree in teaching elementary or high school. They are different and I really am concerned that here we are at the end of February, and I think the department is expecting that in September we are going to have people that are going to be qualified and trained to take on junior kindergarten and kindergarten, and I just don’t think that is on.
The other thing I heard you say is that we are going to train the people who are currently teaching in the authorities, so that tells me we are not going to be adding staff for junior kindergarten, that tells me we are going to be moving junior kindergarten students in with kindergarten students that are already there. In terms of numbers, it’s probably doable. Maybe there are 10 kids in kindergarten and you can add three or four JKs. Sure, from a numbers perspective that’s good, but from a teaching perspective and from an education perspective and a childhood development perspective, it’s not good. We need to have people who are able to differentiate between grade teaching and early childhood development. I am not sensing that the department is really willing to go there.
The other thing that really concerns me is that it’s difficult. I guess my question to the Minister is: How are you going to staff junior kindergarten? Are they going to be a stand-alone class or are they going to be combined with kindergarten students? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, that particular question will have to depend on us working closely with the school boards. The infrastructure, the space availability within a school, so we would have to work out those logistics and as the Member indicated, we are in February, and September, so we do have some time to work with them as well. We have done our research and we have done analysis of the spaces that are available to us, and we have that information before us. Some of the information that Members… I totally agree with the Member that we need qualified professionals to deal with our children in the Northwest Territories and I can just highlight some of the areas where we have early childhood workers taking courses currently. Thirty-three of them. We have early childhood workers that have certification, 27 of them. We have early childhood diploma workers, 15 of them. Those early childhood workers with degrees, there are three of them. Obviously, we want to increase those degrees and diplomas and certification. We have some of those individuals that do not have post-secondary programming; that is around 31 in the small communities. So, Bachelor of Education is another seven individuals that are working within the system of licenced child care programming, so those are just some of the areas that we currently have. Again, we want to increase those numbers and that is what we will be doing as we move forward on the junior kindergarten and so forth.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Before we continue on with questions, committee, I just want to caution both the Members as well as the witnesses here, we are only getting about two or three questions in a 10-minute block. I will give lots of latitude to make sure that we cover this activity efficiently and effectively, but I would ask that we try to get a little bit more of the preamble down and more of the questions to the activities themselves. I am asking for your cooperation. In order I have Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These are interesting exchanges between the Minister and my colleagues. I wanted to ask the Minister, in regards to junior kindergarten, when we are looking at staffing these positions for this specific group of children, junior kindergarten, is the Minister also open to the flexibility of the small communities that we are going to be putting these programs in, to look at the strong Aboriginal culture component? We have teachers; they may just not be qualified in the eyes of the Department of Education and Culture. That could be into these schools, some of these teachers are well specialized in child development in their culture world point of view. Balance that with what we are trying to do. These are four-year-olds, you know, they are just developing and developing into life. I am trying to think of my little guy when he was four years old. His grandmother was around quite a bit to teach him, so I would want to ask the Minister, there are some strong components to some of these smaller communities. If they are unable to get the qualified teachers that we want, there are people in the communities that could come in as a teacher under the project here to work with the junior kindergartens in an Aboriginal context of child development. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. The junior kindergarten, again, as I stated, is play-based programming and I’m glad the Member is referring to a culture base being part of the component. As the Member knows, we just introduced elders in schools, so we want to fully utilize those elders in schools, elders as part of the programming. One part of the learning themes is belonging, also becoming – those children are four-year-olds – to be independent, and learning areas such as living in a world, thinking, and also working, so those are just some of the patterns that will be taught as part of the four-year-old programming. The culture component, again, we want to utilize those elders in the school to work with those teachers. They are there as a resource and we want to fully take advantage of that. Obviously, I want to see more elders into our schools, to take advantage of these particular four-year-olds. They can take them out on the land. I know they are a young age, but you have to start them somewhere. So, that is an area of focus for my department. Mahsi.
Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the Minister, in light of the exchange that I heard between the Minister and some of the colleagues in terms of the teachers’ qualifications, that is something I want to raise here with the Minister. When we implement the Junior Kindergarten Program, which is something I support fully, you have my support. We have people in the communities that could be also equivalent to a teacher but just don’t have the degree or diploma. These are four-year-old children, not Grade 10 or 12, just young ones. This is a voluntary program, not mandatory, voluntary. In our schools like Colville Lake, that was to implement this in Colville Lake. In Colville Lake there is one, two areas of schooling, they are both multi-grades in one building. How are you going to put two or three little junior kindergartens in there? Tough as it is in Colville Lake, after operating to the school year, we are finding that we are getting the support for some of our schools, so we may not find a qualified outside teacher to come to Colville Lake to say, yes, I am specialized, I am looking into the community if possible. This is a new program, I will help out here to say yes, and I am pretty impressed with some of the numbers you have stated as to where the people are getting educated to work in the education field.
Again, as much as I appreciate the elders being in our schools, it’s a long overdue battle with the department. Finally we get something. I don’t even know if our Sahtu communities have elders in the schools. Maybe the Minister could help me on that, too, to get some of our own people to help out with this program here.
I agree with the Member, we’re possibly utilizing community members. We know that some of the community members have worked in the education field or early childhood for 20-plus years. They may not have a degree or diploma, but they have all this experience under their belt. How can we best utilize them in a classroom setting? If we can have some sort of mentorship program working with the teachers, professional teachers. I’ve stated that there’s going to be some training and those individuals that have been identified in the Member’s riding, through the school boards we’ll be able to identify those individuals that we can work with that can be part of the team to provide the junior kindergarten implementation.
The training, as I’ve highlighted, will be this spring and later this summer and will be part of the process. So those individuals that the Member is referring to that have experience of possibly 20-plus years but they don’t have the paper to show that they have a degree, how can we best put them in the classroom setting with the qualification that we can provide them? That is in the works and we’re going to move forward on that through the college and different agencies that we work with. Mahsi.
I’m going to wait patiently and see how this program rolls out. I certainly support you, you have my support for junior kindergarten in the communities. I don’t have a question, I’m just asking for some clarification.
I also want to ask the Minister what type of support is this budget here under these items, $241 million, is given to preschool programming for child care and daycare centres. There are child care centres without licences in 10 communities in the Northwest Territories. Why types of resources are being looked at to support these 10 communities without child care daycare centres?
Out of the $241 million towards operations education in Education, Culture and Employment does capture what the Member is referring to, those 10 communities without licenced early childhood programming. There is a subsidy program that we have within our Education department that captures that. I’ll get Ms. Martin to maybe elaborate in a bit more detail of what she has before her. Mahsi.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Ms. Martin, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Under the early childhood budget, one of the payments that we pay to early childhood providers is the early childhood contributions. We have $2.1 million that’s provided for that as a budget. We also have the Healthy Children Initiative and we also have… The Healthy Children Initiative is $2.1 million. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Martin. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thanks for the information. The communities in the Northwest Territories currently without licenced child care are Colville Lake, Enterprise, Jean Marie, Lutselk’e, Kakisa, Nahanni Butte, Norman Wells, Trout Lake, Tsiigehtchic and Wrigley. They are all in the same category: communities without RCMP and communities without permanent nurses in their centres. I want to list them for the Minister to reiterate that we need their support in the small communities, which brings me to something that I’m compelled to do and I’d like to do. I have a motion I want to read in the House on the daycare facilities that are not in the small communities.
Go ahead, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the government allocate from its existing resources additional funding to support existing daycare facilities and assist in creating new daycare facilities in small communities.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Just give us a second and we’ll circulate the motion.
Committee, the motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, colleagues. This motion is giving recommendations to the government to allocate from the resources that are already stated, additional funding to support some of our existing daycare facilities in the Northwest Territories and also assist in creating new daycare facilities in the smaller communities.
As I stated earlier, we have 10 communities without licenced child care services. In these small communities, the employment rate is not very high. Families are struggling with the high cost of living and child care. Young mothers and young fathers are trying to find work, and if they do, they certainly have to deal with the challenge of finding reliable babysitters. Sometimes they have to be left with family relatives to look after the little ones and sometimes those situations don’t always work out well. In these small communities there is certainly a high percentage of young people now having children, which inspires them, motivates them to work and do something with their lives. A lot of the young people want to work and do something with their life. Given the chance and given the support if it’s there, they will certainly make a go of it.
I’ve also experienced, in listening to young people who want to go to the Aurora College learning centres, yet they have problems with babysitters in the morning. Especially in these small communities, work is not on a continuous basis. There’s seasonal work and when there’s work these young people want to work because it’s only three or four months and they want to do something, develop their skills, put their ability to work in good terms so that in the future they’ll be hired again.
These young people need all the support we can give them. If it could be that the department could look within the existing resources to help the ones that now who already have child care services in their communities and also to look at the ones at the communities without licenced child care services in the North here. This is something that we identified in our discussions as communities without some of the services that the other regions have. It is a high priority. Small communities such as these ones have unique challenges, unique needs. These licenced child care centres do a lot. Even in Norman Wells they just started one up. It was going well. When it shut down, a lot of families were scrambling to find babysitters. Norman Wells has a high rate of people working with a low unemployment rate. The other nine communities are also in the same boat. I just want to raise that. The motion talks about a recommendation to allocate some of the existing funding in this area. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Chair, after some great consideration and thought, and after his passionate comments provided by my colleague Mr. Yakeleya, I will be supporting the motion. Of course, I will be asking for a recorded vote. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Mr. Chair, I think this does bring merit to the issue of daycare facilities in small communities. I know the staff understands, mainly because of the initial results from the EDI instrument that we were trying to address. Kids are going into school as high as 69 percent not developed. I think this motion speaks to that. It’s also an opportunity where we can support mothers, parents, which ultimately leads to parenting skills but it’s also an opportunity where we are able to monitor a child and allow this child, also, before they go into the junior kindergarten, to develop through play-based initiatives and interaction. It would be kind of a one stop shop, I guess you would say, for speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physio, audio, where we get all the children in one area where we can do the assessments on them and do the necessary programs and, I guess, treatment that they may need in the long run or kind of plans to develop. It also provides an opportunity to provide healthy food to the child growing up. It would be an opportunity for coordination of other early childhood programs and we talk about wraparound services in this Early Childhood Development Action Plan and this will be a great opportunity to address those as well. There are a lot of reasons that support this alone.
I know we are trying to take the junior kindergarten route, but before that, you heard colleagues speak about the prenatal to three and I think by providing this, just list off some of the stuff that I listed or really get base of support that this is something that the department really needs to take serious consideration of, not solely but working with the Department of Health and Social Services, which this action plan here clearly states that they have to work together.
We brought the motion forward in this department because I know there was a focus on junior kindergarten, but we also have to make sure that that is not the only focus in the small communities. We also care about the child’s development. You go right down to United Nations’ rights of the child 1991 proclamation. We go as far back as that. We have to start practicing those, as well, and start with this government. If you didn’t know already, I will be supporting the motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, am in support of this motion. It’s been mentioned by a number of people. I think it’s also been mentioned by the Minister, but there is a big need in the territory for daycares, for new daycares. The Minister talked about junior kindergarten and in the same breath mentioned daycare. I know he recognizes that there is a need. We have some daycares, particularly in Yellowknife. We have existing daycares. I have spoken before about the impact that I think junior kindergarten will have on the profitability for the daycares in the city that exists.
We need to provide an increase in funding to existing daycares. One of the things that has not changed in many years, from what I understand, is the daily subsidy per child. The motion asks about assisting supporting existing daycare facilities. I think that is something that the department needs to look at. What is the daily subsidy? What is it going to need to be to support daycares to be profitable once junior kindergarten starts? It definitely is a different scenario when you have zero to three instead of zero to four. I certainly don’t want to see existing daycares fold. We have so few spaces now in the city of Yellowknife, for instance, that we cannot stand to lose any more daycares than we have already lost. In the small communities, we need to put money into creating daycares where possible. Certainly there needs to be community support. There has to be some sort of an initiative on the part of the community or the part of someone in the community to start a business, if that is what it is, but they need the assistance to get that started. That is what this motion asks for. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Bromley.
Mr. Chair, a couple of things. I certainly will be supporting the motion. I would like to note, as well, that some existing daycares will be in trouble as a result of losing four-year-olds to the government JK Program. Younger children that they are left with require a higher ratio of caregivers, so some daycare facilities will certainly become uneconomic and will have to close, leaving parents stranded and unable to work.
My second point is there is an important caveat here and that is this House has already directed the Minister to investigate universal daycare along the models of Quebec and do feasibility work on that. We might hear a progress report on that today. Who knows? On that basis, we have already directed the House to look at daycare for every community in the Northwest Territories at an economic rate. Certainly there is evidence from elsewhere that shows that it pays. In fact, it can easily pay for itself. The caveat is that this would be superseded by that. I expect that the Minister is going to come forward with a positive report on that fairly soon. In the meantime and in this case, I will be supporting this motion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Mr. Chair, I have questions and issues with this concept of universal daycare and daycare in every community and subsidizing daycares because the government is now going in competition with daycares and junior kindergarten. The economics of all of this just sounds a little bit sketchy to me. Mr. Chair is giving me a questioning look. If we are going to take away the four-year-olds, is that going to make all of the private daycares unviable so now we have to financially support businesses that are in the daycare business because the government is… We’re going to pay twice. Let’s put it that way. We are going to pay for junior kindergarten and then we’re going to pay because the zero to three age category needs some kind of subsidy because the staff child ratio is higher with the younger children. I know that. I actually built a daycare once. I ran a daycare once. I know about those ratios and I know about those economies. The more children you have, the more staff you need. It is not really a good money-making proposition at the best of times.
I’m not really sure about this. I mean, daycare in small communities, could I say that if you’re saying that there’s not much employment in those communities, like, who’s going to bring the kids to daycare? I guess some people maybe would. I don’t know. If there are people who do stay home and don’t work outside the home, isn’t it a great economic opportunity for those people to take a couple of children in if there are a few people working, if there are mothers working in the community, and if there’s a place like Norman Wells where they said there are so many people working that they need daycare, well, that seems like a really good business opportunity for somebody to open a daycare if they don’t already have one, and I don’t know what the impediment would be. Pardon?
---Interjection
Oh, okay, so it’s our Junior Kindergarten Program that’s going to make private daycare unviable. I don’t know. The whole economics around this just sounds a little bit different to me and a little bit difficult to understand. It’s a great idea, universal daycare, everybody can take their kids from zero to three then the school will take them from four to…
But to the motion, well, this is the motion. You’re asking this government to spend more money on creating daycare spaces. That is the motion. That’s what I’m talking about. Anyway, I can’t support the motion.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. Mr. Blake.
