Thank you Mr. Ramsay. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Given the current landscape of increased costs of electricity for all, it is comforting to know that the NWT Housing Corporation recently launched a new utility tracking system that captures utility consumption for all our Housing Corporation assets. Knowing that the current NWT Housing Corporation clients pay a substantially reduced rate for power, and I believe it’s around nine cents and the taxpayer is subsidizing the remainder, it is within this context that I wish to address the Minister responsible.
We know with this new utility tracking system we are now able to see trends in power consumption within Housing Corporation assets.
Can the Minister indicate to the House what are some of these preliminary findings? Thank you.
Thank you Mr. Dolynny. Minister responsible for NWT Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We started tracking the utility consumption at the unit level in April of this year. We capture the information for electricity, water and municipal services and usage of electricity, water, municipal services and heating fuel. We’re still early in the process. We just had an opportunity to do it through the spring and summer, so it’s not going to give us very accurate data right now. As we go into the winter season and the usage picks up, then I think after about a year we should have some pretty solid baseline data and see what the trends are, and then we’d be able to make some adjustments.
I appreciate the Minister’s response to that, and it is an exciting time. I guess the overarching question is how will this new data be shared publicly?
We will include this information in our annual report and then in our performance measures as we publish this part of the business plans. We are also happy to make this information available on our website. Once we start gathering a bit more solid baseline data, we will put that up on our website as well.
Keeping confidentiality in mind here and knowing full well that some of this information will be in real time here, will users know where they stand on usage versus other corporation clients? Again, keeping confidentiality in mind, will someone be able to pull up the information and compare them versus what the average is, let’s say, in that LHO area?
The public housing clients pay a portion of their electricity bill, and I think the Member pointed out before, it’s nine cents a kilowatt hour, so they’d be aware of the usage through their monthly bill. For heating fuel and water, we don’t currently report usage back to individual clients. Once we have the baseline data over a one-year period, we can look at how we can report the usage back to the clients. We have to ensure that it’s not administratively burdensome to the LHOs, but once we start gathering more baseline data, then we’ll look at our options of providing this information back to the individual clients.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Knowing this new information might reveal high housing corporation users of heavily subsidized power, what safeguards, actions or practices will the NWT Housing Corporation use to mitigate these high users? Will the Housing Corporation initiate any form of capping of power subsidies to these potential high users in the future?
Again, because we’re early in this and we need some longer term baseline information to better identify the high users, I think we’ll be able to do that, and once we all identify the high users, we can work with the local housing authorities to work with those particular clients to make them aware of the usage. This will also help us in our energy retrofits. If we find a unit in a community is costing us a lot more, depending on the family size, the unit size, then that would be a prime candidate for some of our major modernization and improvement programs. We’ll be using all that information. But at the end of the day, we will work with the clients that we identify to see if there are ways that they could cut back on the usage.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment today. With all due respect to the Minister and the good intentions of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment with respect to Junior Kindergarten as a response to the need for more emphasis on early childhood development, I believe that the rollout and the planning and the way that this is being implemented is not right. There are so many downfalls. There are so many negative repercussions in the larger centres where we already have a very good focus on early childhood development.
I am very frustrated about this, and I’d like to ask the Minister how the department can add what is essentially another class to the public school system without providing the additional funding to cover the cost of that service.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Part of the Junior Kindergarten, obviously, is to roll out the Junior Kindergarten in all 33 communities once it is all a phase three approach. Right now, we’re delivering 23 of 33 communities. When we talk about early childhood development, we want to give options to the parents. There has been great work that is early learning programming in Hay River. I’m fully aware of that, and we are working with that, as well, but we have to keep in mind that some of those programs in the communities are fee for service, and this Junior Kindergarten, obviously, is a great advantage for the parents that cannot afford the JK early learning. This is an option, whether it be part time or full time at the community level. Over a year period in 23 communities we will be re-evaluating where we stand and then continue on with regional delivery of JK and, also, the third phase as well.
This is a perfect example of the government delivering an initiative that they think is good in a very wide broadcast area without the thinking and without the rationalization and the figuring out what the ripple effect is. There’s no sense in re-evaluating Junior Kindergarten in Hay River after you have gutted Aboriginal Head Start, Treehouse, Growing Together, French preschool, the Hay River Cooperative Playschool, which has trained professionals that have been in those jobs for many years. It’s an institution in our community. The community donates $50,000 a year to the Hay River Cooperative Playschool. This is volunteerism. This is an NGO. This is a place with trained workers. There’s no sense in re-evaluating after you’ve gutted the private sector and the NGO sector by taking all the four-year-olds out of the program.
Why can’t we take the resources and target it at the small communities that have nothing in the community that actually have the indications and the proof that early childhood development would actually benefit those folks? Why can’t we direct the resources in that direction? Why do we, as a government, have to do it and broadcast it in such a way as to actually do more harm than good in the regional centres? What option does our DEA have to opt out of implementing Junior Kindergarten?
On May 23rd I met with the DEA chairs, and this particular subject came up. Due to the fact that I’ve listened to the DEA chairs and superintendents, who were part of the discussion, as well, that I should give some flexibility, which I have. Whether it be part time or full time, I gave them the flexibility. The DEAs can decide on that; not only that, the other areas, if it’s going to be full-time, part-time or optional programming. We gave them the option to deliver this into the communities. That’s the reason why we have 23 communities.
I’m the Minister responsible for the whole Northwest Territories. This particular program benefits all communities and it is optional for the parents to take on this program if they wish. As I stated before, not every parent can afford early learning such as the Junior Kindergarten preschool program. There are very successful programs. I clearly hear the Member referring to Aboriginal Head Start and other programs. We are not gutting them. We are working with them. We are…how can we improve in those areas.
Again, JK is optional. It’s a program that will be delivered right now in 23 communities and on to regional the following year, the second phase.
I would like to refute the Minister’s assertion that this is beneficial to all communities. I just listed that when you take the four-year-olds out of all these other programs that are existing and have existed for many years with very good success, you can’t do it in the name of… and not all parents can afford early childhood development. There is no fee for service. There’s parents’ cooperative. There’s volunteerism that goes into the Hay River Cooperative Playschool. Parents are involved. That’s a good thing. The Treehouse, the parents are involved. The Growing Together, the parents come with the children. That’s a good thing. There is no fee for service on any of these early…Aboriginal Head Start. That’s not a daycare, per se. Anyways, I would like to counteract what the Minister said about that.
If this is about getting early childhood development to people who can’t afford it, then subsidize the few people who do want it and it is not optional. If you’re saying that Junior Kindergarten is going to be there regardless, it’s optional for the people to uptake, but it’s not optional for the DEA to implement it. So, I don’t know.
At our DEA meeting we talked about laying down on the road and I think we might end up having to do this on this, and I think the DEA should tell the department, in no uncertain terms, you’re not going to gut and you’re not going to ruin what we already have going in our community. Maybe there’s a few parents that go like, hey, great, my four-year-old is in school all day, I don’t need to pay for daycare, I’d say it’s very, very few. I don’t think it’s beneficial to Hay River, and like I said, we may lay down on the road. What’s going to happen to us when we do that? Thank you.
Mahsi. That’s the very reason we’re working with the South Slave Education Council. We met with them two weekends ago, myself and Minister Beaulieu, because we talked about PWS infrastructure-wise and as Minister responsible for Education. We’ve met with the South Slave, all the board chairs, and they’ve raised their concerns as well. I’ve made a commitment to work with them to deliver this particular second-phased approach, how can we best deliver that. We’ve heard their concerns.
So, again, we’re at the stage where 23 communities are currently delivering it. We’re into two months already, and again, by next year we should have a clear idea where we stand on that from our experience from delivering of the JK to 23 communities. But we have to keep in mind that my department is working very closely with the DEAs, DECs all across the Northwest Territories. More specifically now with the South Slave region, with the board chairs and also the superintendents. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is bound and determined, regardless of the facts, to proceed with implementing Junior Kindergarten in all communities. Please reconsider, please take those resources and direct them to where there are no options for early childhood development in some of the smaller communities, and please don’t with your wide-sweeping approach, ruin a good thing that’s going on in the larger and the regional centres.
Please, would the Minister tell me how he expects the larger schools and the larger communities, and even in the smaller communities, according to my colleague from the Mackenzie Delta, how do you expect the schools and the DEAs to do this with no additional resources? I mean, providing money for a water-table and a sand-table, I’m sorry, it’s not going to cut it. It takes people and it takes specifically specialized, educated people to deliver the Junior Kindergarten program. That’s not going to work. It’s going to cost a lot of money and it’s going to do a lot of harm. I’d like to ask the Minister, how does he expect the DEAs to do more with less. Thank you.
Mahsi. Again, this Junior Kindergarten has been a topic of discussion for a number of years, even before I got on board as Education Minister in 2007. Through the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative and also earlier engagement, that the pre-learning should be first and foremost a priority of this government. That’s why we laid down the early childhood development, the overall framework, the 10-year agreement. So this is an area that I feel will benefit the communities and the 23 communities that we service. We have the teachers here today being trained on the EDI, we have teachers that went through training programs last spring and last fall and it will continue with regional teachers as well.
So when it comes to the second phase for regional centres, such as Hay River, we need to seriously look at how we deliver JK in the 23 communities and what have we learned, the experience. At that time we may be in a different financial position, we don’t know at this point today. So we’ll continue to press that forward. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to ask a question here today. I’m going to follow up on similar questions and not let the Minister of Education off the hook. I think my MLA colleague Mrs. Groenewegen is quite right. I mean, we were there to solve the problem and, as such, it was things about providing child care support for families in small communities and we’ve done completely the opposite, we’ve made a mess.
In short, no one is against the concept of Junior Kindergarten, but now we have day homes at risk. The Minister is poaching one-third of their students; he’s turning Aboriginal Head Start into a mess.
So with all these little policy changes he’s done, and he’s ignored a duly appropriate motion passed in this Assembly to stop what he’s doing, what is his intent to do for the day homes that will be losing one-third of their children, which is in fact one-third of their stream? He’s going to collapse, singlehandedly collapse the daycare system in every large community. What is he going to do?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’ve already answered this a couple of sessions ago, that my department is working very closely with organizations, whether they be early learning, the daycares, all those organizations that could be potentially impacted, whether it be positive or negative. We are, as a department, and I’ve instructed my department to work very closely with them, all over the Northwest Territories, not just Yellowknife and Hay River and the larger centres but all communities. We will continue to do that, and if there are any ripple effects, then my department will follow through immediately. So, we are closely monitoring it. We’re working diligently with the organizations as well. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, this Minister has scuttled the daycare ship and he’s now coming up with policy about not shooting holes. He’s singlehandedly ruined the daycare system out there and is now saying, oh well, we’ll develop policy when we come across that bridge. This Minister should be proud that he’s going to go down in history as the person who has ruined daycare in the Northwest Territories.
With all of these changes, wouldn’t you have thought it would have made a lot more sense to develop policy to know what types of bridges we’re going to cross before we blow them up and ask ourselves, geez, how do we get across now?
Mahsi. When it comes to whether it be family day homes, the daycares, we’ve made some changes already. There’s been some recommendations brought to our attention by those operators and we’ve listened to the operators, we’ve heard their concerns, we’ve made some changes. From here until we deliver to all the communities, we’re going to make those changes along the way. We have done so and we will continue to do so. Mahsi.
The Minister introduced this. Let’s find out what changes he’s referring to, because the last public meeting the daycare folks went to the department told them to suck it up and find a way. So, what are those changes?
Mahsi. I don’t think that’s an appropriate word to say in this House, but I’ll answer some of the questions. Family day home regulations to allow family day homes to have more flexibility of children aged two to five, so that’s the changes we’ve made based on the recommendations brought to my attention. Along with other recommendations brought to my attention, we will make some changes as well.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll concede I probably could have put that a little nicer, but that’s the truth and the public wants to hear the truth. Sometimes they want to hear it exactly for what it means.
The last question is: When you’ve got deputy ministers telling these day home operators that even though you’ll lose one-third of your income, it’s up to you to start budgeting better, it’s time for you to accept the fact that the loss is yours and you need to start accepting this, these are quotes from family people who went to your meeting organized by you.
Does the Minister stand by that policy and he has not delivered a single iota of information, vision or fact on how we’re going to solve this problem? Does the Minister stand with that position?
Mahsi. I stand by how we can work closely with the daycare operators, the preschool operators, all of those operators in the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Time for oral question period has expired.
Colleagues, before we go on today, I’d like to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of our current and soon to be former Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. David Brock.
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Mr. Brock has served as the Chief Electoral Officer from the 2011 General Election, which resulted in each of our elections here in this House, and he must have done a good job.
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He was also the secretary in the most recent Electoral Boundaries Commission and provided expert and balanced advice to both the commission, to Caucus as a whole, and has appeared before this House and standing committees many times during his term, and he has always fulfilled his duties with professionalism. The objective and wisdom required is expected of an officer such as this.
Members, please express our gratitude to Mr. Brock for his public service and wish him well in his future endeavors. Thank you, Mr. Brock.
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Also with Mr. Brock in the House today we have Ms. Nicole Latour, who will be nominated to fill the office of Chief Electoral Officer later today. Welcome to the House.
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Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Speaker I seek unanimous consent to return to item 6 on our orders of the day, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Thank you.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I use the opportunity to recognize Mrs. Cindy Dolynny in our gallery here today. She’s sitting next to a particularly friendly person we all know very well today. I’m not allowed recognize them in particular, but that said, I’d like to recognize Mrs. Dolynny in the House.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize my constituency assistant. No, it’s not Wendy; it’s Leah Ipana, my constituency assistant. Welcome, Leah. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Public Accounts 2013-2014.”
Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Northwest Territories Coroner Service 2013 Annual Report.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bromley.
