Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a lot of my colleagues have mentioned, the importance of early childhood in the ages zero to three. If we don’t put our services and our investments into this initiative, we’re going to be failing our students as they progress in life, as they get into middle school, elementary school and as seniors. We don’t have to look too far to see our graduation rates of the NWT as well as the money that we’re going to be putting into inclusive schooling here.
I want to speak to a specific issue. We know that programs are needed just as much as space facilities for our children and our youth and our children. To have access to these programs, space is needed. In Inuvik we have a situation where both our schools are going to be closing in the fall and our new school is going to open. With the closing of the schools, two-thirds of our children that are currently accessing early childhood development programs are not going to have that opportunity to continue on in their lives.
We have a great committee in Inuvik that is working very hard fundraising, volunteering, getting in-kind contributions and donations to make sure this building is going to be available, the Inuvik Children’s Development Centre is going to be available in the fall so that two-thirds of these children are not going to be left without these programs.
More importantly, in an economy where there’s a downturn do to the high cost of living in our communities, double-income families – which is also essential just to make it by – are going to have to rely on single-income families if one parent has to stay home and take care of the child. This is not just a problem or an issue that is facing Inuvik but it is an issue that is facing all of the communities in the Northwest Territories. In order to achieve success within our youth and our economy and our families, we need to invest in infrastructure and have these spaces readily available so that our children can succeed and participate in these developmental programs.
We have to invest in our early childhood development for future benefits of this government, future benefits of our communities and the future benefits of our families so that every child has an opportunity to succeed in their life, and it starts in this House. It starts with the commitments, the programs and the funding to move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
