Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Friday, June 1, 2012, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Ministers of Education, Culture and Employment and Health and Social Services work together to bring forward proposals for new and comprehensive early childhood development programming to begin in the current fiscal year, including a plan and funding to assist communities with securing suitable space for early childhood development programs;
And further, that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a comprehensive response to this motion within 120 days.
Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time, I will be seeking unanimous consent to deal with this motion today. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Item 17, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 18, motions. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. WHEREAS early childhood development is a priority of the 17th Legislative Assembly;
AND WHEREAS the mandate letters issued by the Premier to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and to the Minister of Health and Social Services instruct them to work together to develop and implement a comprehensive Early Childhood Development Framework;
AND WHEREAS the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment has acknowledged that healthy childhoods are the best foundations to develop healthy, productive adults;
AND WHEREAS the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative recognized that fundamental prerequisite of improved early childhood development;
AND WHEREAS it is widely recognized among researchers and educators that the first three years of life are the critical period of laying the groundwork for language, cognitive and social development and lifelong mental and physical health;
AND WHEREAS the development of early childhood programs for the prenatal period and the first three years of life requires a Health and Social Services lead and the development of programs for later ages requires an Education, Culture and Employment lead;
AND WHEREAS the World Health Organization has stated that early childhood is the most important phase for overall development throughout the lifespan, that brain and biological development during the first years of life is highly influenced by an infant’s environment, and that early experiences determine health, education and economic participation for the rest of the life;
AND WHEREAS a recent World Bank report concluded that no other development investment boasts a higher payoff for people and for the economies than early childhood development;
AND WHEREAS the government failed to bring forward recommendations for a new or enhanced early childhood development programming in the 2012-2013 budget;
AND WHEREAS each year of delays to the implementation of new early childhood initiatives deprives a year’s cohort of children of programming that will help them to fulfil their potential throughout their lives;
NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Ministers of Education, Culture and Employment and Health and Social Services work together to bring forward proposals for new and comprehensive early childhood development programming to begin in the current fiscal year, including a plan and funding to assist communities with securing suitable space for early childhood development programs;
AND FURTHER, that the Government of the Northwest Territories provide a comprehensive response to this motion within 120 days. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the seconder of the motion, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is this the opportunity to speak to the motion?
Yes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the motion here, and appreciate my colleague bringing this forward. I would like to start by just noting that there has been an incredible amount of new research in the area of early childhood development that jurisdictions are drawing upon, and we’re starting to realize that and it’s quite an opportunity. I’d like to go over just a little bit of that here today.
Brain development occurs during the first few years of life. It really starts during the prenatal period and happens, really, the physical development, during the first three years, and then the full development, in terms of its capacity, during those first three years and a little bit beyond. The unfortunate part is if that development doesn’t happen during that stage, it becomes much more challenging to get that development done later, and certainly more expensive, in terms of the government programs and so on.
However, if children do develop in a vigorous and healthy way, their brains and their bodies, they are at an incredible level of lifetime resilience and learning capacity. Development of pathways – and that’s what this seems to depend on, the research is showing – is that there are pathways that develop in the brain with proper early childhood development and a healthy family approach. With that development, these pathways, first of all, require a caring relationship with a consistent care provider, as has been noted. Typically, these are the parents. Interactions with parents in a healthy way helps the child deal with stress it encounters – and it’s natural to encounter stress on a regular basis – and this contributes to building resiliency. Without these trusting and caring relationships, however, when a child does encounter stress, the stress does not get resolved and the impacts of that stress build and become what the professionals call toxic forms of stress, and those inhibit the development of pathways in the brain itself and the resilience that that brings.
It’s also been found that language development, for example, really it peaks within the first year of life and declines rapidly thereafter, the capacity for learning languages. That capacity is established during this early stage. That’s so important to know about. The research also shows that genetics play a role. With these healthy and caring relationships from consistent care providers, genes that are part of our makeup get expressed and activated and that hugely enhances our capacity as a human being throughout the rest of the child’s life. Again, the opposite is without those caring relationships and proper early childhood development support, the probability of that genetic expression goes down. We want to encourage that for lifelong benefits.
I mentioned language, and that’s an important one for the Northwest Territories where we have 11 official languages and we want to ensure the health of our languages over time.
I’d also like to note that the brain is considered plastic. That is, it does have a lot of ability to recover from stress and so on, and with effort, new wiring, these new pathways can be established, but getting it right the first time is optimal for government. If we wait until pre-kindergarten, for example, to intervene in a child’s development, we are starting too late. People often assume that a child is a sponge or an empty vessel up to a certain development point. In fact, what happens very early in the foundation is that establishing this foundation though healthy pathways and development is the key to everything that follows.
I also want to note that brain development, based on the research, will, in fact, affect both learning, such as the acquisition of skills, ability to concentrate and adapt, and health. That’s from cardiovascular health to stress susceptibility for the rest of the child’s life. Again, all this is by way of saying we have a huge and exciting opportunity here to do some good work.
I think my colleague and others have mentioned where jurisdictions have focused in on this and are focusing today, they have found a huge impact, a positive impact on positive economic development, something that this House regularly talks about. We know that our social costs, two-thirds of our budget, are high and rising, and we, rather unfortunately, lead the country in many of our social statistics. It has been demonstrated, again, investments in early childhood development is the best single thing we can do to address those things, and this is including things like our educational achievements, corrections, and of course, physical and mental health.
All of this work depends, of course, as we’ve heard, on good family relationships. The child, first and foremost, is relying on its parents, and so we want good and healthy relationships there. We know that coming out of residential school and so on, there’s still a lot of healing to be done in the North. I’m pleased to say that early childhood development can help break that cycle and help the children. It is also being found in studies in Harlem, New York, for example, where this is happening, that in fact it can also have great benefits to the parents through their learning about early childhood development and how to have healthy relationships with their very small children. There are huge opportunities on all fronts there.
It’s not surprising that other adults, the extended family, the friends of the family and ultimately as a community itself, community relationships and non-government organizations all provide critical roles, and along with those, of course, is government. That is what we are on about today. We would like to see government stepping up to the plate in a very knowledgeable way and working with experts in the field with the appropriate leads at the appropriate time, because this is a complex issue that extends right through from early childhood. We have been falling short on the earliest years, but it is a transitory thing that develops throughout the early life of a child through school. All aspects are important but the foundation is laid down in those early years, and we want to see that recognized and we want to begin programs being put in place and funded again in a coordinated and sophisticated way right this fiscal year.
We have been talking about this obviously for years now. I will leave it at that.
Again, I appreciate all of the notes from my colleagues today and they’re speaking out on this. I look forward to good work with the Ministers of Education and Health to forward this work that we are calling for today. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I allowed Mr. Bromley to speak to this because he was a seconder, so the motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not too sure how much more I can add to Mr. Bromley’s statement. I think he said it very well. It gave us all the information that we need to go ahead and make a decision on this.
Being new to the government, it is just something that I assumed that this government was working on and taking care of, and to be in here now and make these changes and be part of it, I am very honoured to help work on taking this initiative through.
Early childhood zero to three years old, Mr. Bromley hit it right on the head with the brain and biological developments, the language, the cognitive and social developments within that time frame which is very important. It allows our youth to have a chance to live a healthy lifestyle as they grow up to be prepared for when they go into the school system, a school system where we don’t always see the positive impacts that come from this.
Positively with the early childhood development investment that this government goes to, we can positively impact the low language and speaking levels we have in K to 3 right now. We can positively impact the inclusive schooling and the amount of dollars that this government spends on inclusive schooling. We can positively impact our graduation rates so students, when they get into the school system, are ready to learn, they have all the tools ready to take that on and be successful. Not only with the students but we are also looking at families and communities.
Just coming from the motion here, I just want to restate this. A recent World Bank report concluded that no other development investment hosts a higher pay-off for people and for economies than early childhood development. That alone should tell us that we should be putting some of our dollars into early childhood development which will impact our territory, our economy, our communities, our families and give our kids a chance to grow up successfully.
With that said, I will allow for other Members to speak to the motion. I thank everyone’s comments today with their Member’s statements. At the end of this motion, I will be asking for a recorded vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this motion. I very strongly support this motion. The sentiments towards the need for early childhood development programming have been expressed by pretty much all Members here. I totally agree with the sentiments that have been expressed by my colleagues. I appreciate the actions that are currently being undertaken by the departments of Health and Social Services and Education, Culture and Employment. I believe it is a start. I believe it is a slow start, but I’m very glad to see that they’re doing some work and that they’re working together. Collaboration between these two departments is absolutely necessary.
I believe one of my colleagues, in their statement, talked about the fact that zero to preschool or to the start of school tends to be with Health and from anything within school years tends to be with Education. I feel quite strongly that we need to go beyond two departments working together. I think we need to establish one place where this work is done. We need to establish a lead person or a lead area within one of those two departments to take on this job. We have to clearly establish who is leading the development of the framework and who is going to lead the development of the program that is being asked for in this motion. I don’t think it’s a difficult thing to do. I think it is quite possible we can second people from one department to another. We can transfer people from one department to another. It is relatively easily done, in my mind.
The other thing that I think is extremely important and that there is not enough focus on – and we spoke to this a bit yesterday in Committee of the Whole – is the need to train early childhood education staff. We don’t do enough of that. We don’t highlight those programs enough. We don’t market them. We don’t promote them with our residents. As was mentioned, we certainly don’t pay people enough for the jobs that they do. Many of them are committed and dedicated to their jobs, but we don’t pay them enough. I think that we ought to put a higher focus on our programming at the college and that we ought to put a higher focus on early childhood education teachers.
I think if we put money and effort into this particular issue, and more so than what we are currently doing for sure, we are not going to be out in the wilderness. We are certainly not ahead of the pack on this, but we would be doing a national movement. I believe right now that there is a large focus on ECD. We need to get there. It is so well documented, as Mr. Bromley alluded, and as any report will tell you, early development of children has a huge impact on the effect of their life later on.
We have so many of our residents who struggle with addictions, with drugs and alcohol, any number of difficulties. We have a lot of them who are affected by mental illness. Many of those issues start from an early age. They are developed when children are very young. If we can nip that in the bud, so to speak, and get the right environment for kids between zero and when they start school or even just zero to three and then work from there upwards, I think it is going to have a huge impact on our residents as a whole, but it will also, as I mentioned, have an impact on our bottom line and our budget; positive impact, not negative.
I think if we really believe in our Assembly priorities – and I mentioned it in my statement – we would be putting money into it. I talked about prevention and I talked about early childhood development. We are not, I don’t believe, in this budget, putting the emphasis on both of those two items that we should. We are speaking to the ECE budget today.
I fully support the motion and I strongly encourage my colleagues to vote in support as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand here before you today in strong support of the motion that we have before the House. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement and also with the motion here, we need to send a very strong and meaningful message not just to the government here but to all those watching, all those departments out there who are collaborating to make sure that this is a high priority. The Assembly here has made that a priority. We are hoping that we are doing the same.
As mentioned earlier, in zero to three is really the target and focus of what we are trying to get across and that requires a lot of paradigm shift in thinking. That also requires changes in our behaviour. That requires changes in what we have before us. What we have before us is a 10-year-old document. Things have changed. Technology has changed. Science has changed.
As the Minister mentioned earlier, there is lots at our disposal that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that we are actually in the wrong part of our budget dealing with the wrong part of this equation. We need to move that issue over, along with new money.
As I mentioned, without this new money and as we’re seeing, as the Member for Frame Lake alluded, we’ll be negotiating and debating our budget for ECE later and it’s very, very displeasing to see that all these new initiatives and all this desire and bravado towards change shows no new money. I have grave concerns with that and I’m sure it will be debated later on in the House.
Our children need that support. We need this new money. We need new initiatives within the budget to help us push that first domino. That first domino creates a cascade. Anyone who’s seen dominoes move one behind the other will see beyond a reasonable doubt that that cascade is very evident. We need to push that first domino, and that starts with a proper budget and that starts with a proper desire.
In essence, that old cliché that we need to put a little hustle behind the muscle is never more evident as we see here today. I ask that from the Minister and I ask that from the department and I will speak in favour of this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be speaking in support of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Moses and Mr. Bromley, for bringing this to the floor. They’re highlighting the importance of our youth, highlighting the importance of our workers, highlighting the importance of our families and the people that put these programs together in the Department of Education, the Department of Health, and the government itself to continue to support the early childhood development.
I spoke earlier about supporting the most important teachers in the child’s life are the parents. Usually above 90 percent it’s the mother. Having support for the mother with the child. More importantly, how do we get the teachers and the child to work together for each other and get them support?
I want to say that in my nine years of being MLA I’ve travelled to the Sahtu, and at times I go to the preschools and I go to the places where they offer these programs. It’s quite amazing to see the little kids with the teachers. Sometimes you ask the teachers or staff what they’re doing to make it in the school session or the years that they’ve been there. Sometimes they do some fundraising. Sometimes some of the oil companies or mining companies or the government themselves provides meals for the little kids that come to the preschools. It’s quite amazing to sit amongst the little kids there. We have a place where it says something about the government, that they are supporting something like that that’s good for the parents and also for training for the teachers that go and teach at these early childhood development programs.
We need to continue supporting their training, support them in what they’re doing, because they are setting the foundation for our future. The language is one way of looking at it. We need to look at how we support these children in our communities.
I’d like to thank Mr. Moses and Mr. Bromley for bringing this motion to the floor.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be voting in favour of the motion. I think it’s the timeliness of this issue and to highlight it in this House and to get all Members of the Legislative Assembly to move forward with this issue. It’s been on the backburner for many, many years. Just how it impacts the smaller communities is my concern. It does have to be resourced and the resources are there currently, but it’s few and far between. That’s why I’ll be supporting this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise on this occasion and I feel very strong about this motion. I think it’s an opportunity for us to go forward together. I think the time and the circumstance and all the signs are out there that we need to go forward. This government needs to do more in terms of trying to at least broaden our foundation, and one of the pillars is education. The early start that we have in developing the advances of peoples’ minds and at least these gifts that we call our children and working with them, the more investment that we’re making for our future. Therefore, I will vote in favour of this motion.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement today, clearly there are a lot of examples of how early childhood education can be implemented and certainly it’s a program that can start a phenomenal difference into a young person’s life. If we build that foundation it means a lot.
I say to this McLeod government, don’t just heed the warning from us. I mean, there are many parents and experts that will tell you this is such a critical part for the development of our children and the future of our children in our education system. We all know good education is the backbone of a solid foundation going forward in someone’s future. There are a lot of researchers that have often pointed out about the fact that a good education gives people more opportunity which keeps them away from at risk.
It would be nice, of course, if we could develop a universal early childhood education program, but the fact is we know it won’t be like that. The reality is we could stand up here today and get behind this type of initiative to say we’re going to make sure we have some type of program that is invested and involved in every community. So our kids, just like the old American saying goes, no child left behind. We could take on that attitude, the positive attitude and can-do approach which says in the Northwest Territories we’re going to try real hard and make sure that no child is left behind by serious intervention and investment by our territory.
Earlier today I also pointed out the fact that there are different domains or certainly different pillars recognized under early childhood development: social development, physical development, intellectual development, creative development, and certainly emotional development. Each in its own way is a pillar to the future that these kids are moving forward on. It’s important that we invest in ways to recognize some kids need more help than others in certain areas. It’s these early assessments that are so critical because let’s invest at a time when we can truly make a difference on the longer term outcome of people. By sitting here ignoring this possibility or opportunity, if I may say, what we’re doing is setting them up for a long-term failure. By all means, we’re not just failing them, we’re failing ourselves.
Children living in low-income households are sometimes those who need this most. I don’t want to get down to the nitty-gritty of describing one household or the other, but there are certain elements of kids coming from homes that don’t get the support that they need and this is where government needs to step in and help play the role. It doesn’t mean if you’re coming from a family that’s well to do or not. Any kid could struggle with these types of burdens. Certainly this is our chance to invest. Our educators are asking for this and we need to make sure that we provide not only the stuff that I talked about, but we need to provide a nurturing and stimulating environment that helps reward and invest in these kids to bring out their best. We need a plan and a strategy that works on language development. We need to look at the uniqueness of these children through assessment and say, you know what, they may need a little strength in certain areas.
Recently I was at a school board meeting with a couple of my other colleagues and they talked about one child which is one of many that showed up and couldn’t speak for the longest time there when they entered school. That was only one example of several examples they had provided. This is the type of resource capacity that the schools need to make sure that our kids get the best start. If they show up in our education system, we can’t expect kindergarten to solve all the problems going forward. Some of this early intervention is highlighted already by my colleagues here. It has to start at age three or even, in special cases, earlier.
There are so many elements to early childhood education and I’m sure I’ve said some of them. Certainly not all of them. My colleagues are doing certainly their best to highlight the importance of this particular program. The fact is we have to make a territorial program that’s understood and implemented in all regions. Not just Yellowknife or the big centres such as Hay River and Inuvik, but into our communities because they’re so critical.
That’s all I really want to get down to on this particular subject today. It’s a passionate subject not just of myself but all the other colleagues here. If we have recognized one important thing, it’s about the value that we have recognized that we’ve placed on our youth and how important that particular issue is. There is no better investment than investing in our children. It doesn’t come down to anything more complicated than that. We can hope all we want, but today we can make the right type of investments. A solid early childhood education program, as I talked about earlier today, is the type of investment that we need to do. That would be the foundation, truly a hallmark of our North.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government agrees that early childhood development is important and also it is one of the priorities of this government. I would like to thank the Members for raising the significance of the early childhood development, because Education, Culture and Employment has already made it a priority and is researching the best way to proceed.
ECE is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Services to revise and renew the existing Early Childhood Development Framework for Action. The chief medical health officer has recently been identified to lead the development of the revised draft framework. A working group has been struck for renewal of the framework with representatives from the Department of Health and Social Services and Department of Education, Culture and Employment. The consultation will be an important part of the process and will be taken across the Northwest Territories in the fall of 2012.
Early learning and care is a component of the framework. Education, Culture and Employment is planning the following developments under the early learning and care component of the revised framework:
The expansion of the early childhood education and care programs using the Aboriginal Head Start model and a new Northwest Territories-developed curriculum.
Initiation of a two-year on-site early childhood development and care diploma through Fort Smith Campus of Aurora College. The transition year will be 2013-2014. The first graduates will be in May 2016.
The development of trial territorial early learning framework through partnership with Yukon and Nunavut to be completed in April 2013.
Once this final stage of the review is completed, a renewal of the Early Childhood Development Framework will be put forward for consideration during the 2013-2014 planning cycle.
We have already begun working with the leaders of the Northwest Territories on this particular topic. On May 4, 2012, Health and Social Services and Education, Culture and Employment hosted initial discussions with the stakeholders on the development of child and family resource centres. The departments are working on an action plan to develop two such centres in the current fiscal year.
On May 8th and 9th I held my first annual meeting with the school boards and leaders of all major Aboriginal organizations in the Northwest Territories. The four pillars of Aboriginal Student Achievement were discussed at this high-level education and Aboriginal leadership meeting. Of course, early childhood education and child care is the first pillar of ASA. The regional leaders broke into regional groups and discussed and made recommendations on early childhood education and child care. The results of both meetings resulted in revamping the Early Childhood Development Framework for Action.
As this is a recommendation to our government, Cabinet members will abstain from voting.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. I’ll allow the mover of the motion for closing remarks. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve done a lot of work in my time in the communities within my governments. I’ve participated on the front line with a lot of community workers, teachers, parents, concerned Members, leaders in our communities. What it always comes down to is everybody sees it in their communities. The social issues that impact our community can be addressed by putting money and investing into our early childhood development. Like I said when I was talking earlier, I thought this government was working on this already. I had the assumption and confidence that our government was working to make our communities and economy a lot healthier and safer. To come into this government as a new Member and to see that eight months into this Assembly we’re actually asking the government to invest money into early childhood development that’s going to our population and our residents for years to come. I’m very proud that on this side we get the chance to vote in favour of a motion to support our families back home, to support our constituents, to support our communities and our families, to support our educators, our health practitioners, the people in the justice system, all the departments that are affected by the lack of investment into this initiative, which is early childhood development.
It’s stated that every dollar you invest in early childhood development, the returns are about $6 to $8. That alone should say that we should be investing more money in there. As we go through the budget, some of the line items that I’ve been seeing are very shocking to me and the lack of funding in some areas is even more shocking. As this government, we have the opportunity so that when we invest today, that in years to come we’re going to start to see a healthier, more educated group of youth, a healthier, more educated generation of adults in our Northwest Territories and in our communities so that we can start to see the benefits of what we do today in years to come.
I thank all Members here for their comments, for their passion, their concern for our people of the Northwest Territories. I’d also like to give the Premier an opportunity to allow his Cabinet to vote freely on this, to allow their Members back home, their family, their communities, show them the support that they need for this early childhood development.
