Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Often it’s stated that children are special gifts in our future. I could not agree more to this strong statement. There’s a statement in Dene culture: You become a child twice in your life – in the beginning and the latter part of your life. This is what I understand is the special relationship between children and elders.
Children are the spirit of our communities. Parents and extended families play a critical role in raising our children. In the northern communities we have some initiatives in preschools, daycares, playschools and kindergarten programs. I understand governments have frameworks outlining general principles for children, but do not go far enough for a goal that we agreed to in the fall.
We acknowledge that there are pressures on the labour force in the NWT for qualified and trained workers, particularly for the need for more women to enter the workforce. This government should be able to do more to make this happen. This government perhaps could maybe consider a legislation to ensure there are fiscal commitments to ensure that more efforts are directed towards preschool initiatives and ensuring that there are general initiatives in terms of recognizing the need for programs to happen in the beginning of life for children in terms of at least from when they were born, right to when they go to school. At the same time maybe there needs to be more research and analysis towards discussion and towards achieving at least a plan to implement programs immediately.
In the fall we all agreed that we wanted to work together. At the same time there was a goal to ensure that we develop preschool initiatives. I could not agree more. We pride ourselves in the Northwest Territories that we do things differently than mainstream Canada. This is an opportunity for us to establish a very unique program for the Northwest Territories.
