Debates of February 17, 2017 (day 55)

I now call committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee, Mr. Beaulieu?

Tom Beaulieu

Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 261-18(2), Northwest Territories Main Estimates, 2017-2018, continuing with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. We will consider the document after a short break. Everybody agrees?

Speaker: SOME HON. MEMBERS

Agreed.

Agreed. Mahsi.

---SHORT RECESS

Recognizing a quorum, we will call committee back to order. Thank you, Minister Moses. Do you have any witnesses you would like to bring into the Chamber?

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

SergeantatArms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Welcome. Minister Moses, please introduce your witnesses for the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my right, I have my deputy minister, Ms. Sylvia Haener, and on my left, Mr. Olin Lovely, assistant deputy minister of corporate services. Thank you.

Thank you. We will begin with general comments on the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Members are welcome to ten minutes for the general comments. After all Members have had an opportunity to make their comments, the Minister will have ten minutes to respond. Do I have general comments on the Department of Education, Culture and Employment? Mr. Blake.

Frederick Blake Jr.

Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Chair, just a few comments. For the last two years, I have always been doing a few statements on the need for funding for junior kindergarten, and I am glad to see there is some funding going towards this. Since we had the pilot project in Tsiigehtchic two years back, at the start I believe they had a little over $45,000. I believe it is $48,000. It has been a while since I have seen those numbers, but I am really interested to see the actual amount that will be going to the communities after this. I know some communities will decide not to take on junior kindergarten, but that is solely their decision under the DAs.

As we move forward, I know Tsiigehtchic, for example, they are keen on continuing with the program, and I am really interested to see the extra funding going to communities. I will probably be asking this a little later, but for the communities that are taking this on, will they be getting more as other communities decide not to take this on? That will be really interesting for myself and those communities that decide to actually take on junior kindergarten as we move forward.

Also, under take a kid hunting and programs like this that are offered through the schools, it is a really good program. It is really successful in communities that I represent, Fort McPherson, Aklavik, Tsiigehtchic. The communities and the schools really do a great job working together, and I hope to see that continue. That is all I have for now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Ms. Green.

Julie Green

Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I just want to provide some general reflections here, as you requested. The Department of Education, Culture and Employment plays a very important role in the NWT in controlling some key funds which are widely accessed, portfolios such as education and income assistance, to name just a couple. I recognize that the department is looking at substantial change, with a view to improving service delivery in these areas, but I have to point to a very consistent pattern of communication breakdown that has happened between both the department and the public and the department and the Regular Members.

We have worked very hard leading up to today to understand whether junior kindergarten is fully funded in all places for all additional costs in the next school year, and we have not received a definitive answer on that at all. Junior kindergarten could have been a goodnews story, but because of the way that the information was distributed, it was not that. Likewise, instructional hours; this is a very significant change that is being proposed by the department, particularly for the high school grades. We have yet to receive a briefing as Regular MLAs on this initiative, and that is simply unacceptable. We have heard in the meantime about an interim draft plan for Aboriginal language and culture; not that that issue isn't important, but the consequences of changing instructional hours affect every single child in the NWT.

The income assistance changes is another area that I will have questions on. I know that the Minister says that everyone is better off. I am still not a hundred per cent convinced that they are as well off as he thinks they are, but this is another area where a lack of clarity about what was on offer and how it was going to be funded has really hobbled efforts to understand what is going on here.

Those are three of my examples that I want to bring to the Minister's attention, and to his staff. We want to see, as they want to see, the best opportunity provided to the children of the NWT to make the best of their opportunities and to realize their full potential in their lifetimes.

We also want to see that people who access postsecondary education are able to receive valuable education that will keep them in the North. We need trained people in the North. Every measurement possible says that that is the case. Most of all, I just want to impress on the Minister that we really need to improve the communication with the public and with the Regular MLAs around these initiatives so that he can turn us into supporters instead of adversaries. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Mr. Thompson.

Shane Thompson

Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will try to just keep mine specific so we can get moving on this. I will try not to take the 10 minutes. I guess my first one is that I would have to agree with my colleague who just previously spoke about communication. This is probably the biggest challenge that we are facing out there, is the messaging and how we get that messaging to the general public, because there is a lot of miscommunication out there. I say we, collectively, are doing a bad job because we are not getting the information or asking for the proper information and getting it out there to the people.

Junior kindergarten is a huge issue for the Northwest Territories in that it has an impact on a number of different organizations. For the record, junior kindergarten has been a big success in my region, and people have bought into it from the very beginning, except for one community. However, the caveat is it needs to be fully funded. We have heard it now in the House it has been fully funded, but, again, the numbers of communications on how much it is actually going to cost, it seems to be different from what we are hearing. We hear one thing, then we hear another thing. Then, getting communication, we find out from the press that it is fully funded; not from the Minister but from the press as we are going forward.

We understood from the Finance Minister it was going to be done throughout the sitting of this term, and then the Minister informed us it was going to get done. The advancement was going to be done during the time as communities are prepared to do it. I appreciate that, but, again, the actual costs of the funding, we still don't know. We have talked about inclusive schooling, language, busing. Those are the challenges out there that are not part of it.

I have heard the Minister speak in this House about how we have $150 million going to school boards; they have to make decisions. Well, again, that to me sounds like we are not taking ownership. Education is our responsibility, the Government of the Northwest Territories. We work with the divisional education councils and, yes, it is alright to give them some latitude, but we have to give them clear directions, and it needs to be done so that people of the Northwest Territories understand we are working together. It does not mean that we are fighting against each other all the time. It comes back to the college. We talked about the college: well, we give them money, and we give them some clear direction; well, then you've got to find the money. They are not doing strategic plans, so cuts are happening without strategic plans.

I have no problem making cuts if they are logical and they are processed properly, but if we are relying on a third party to do it, which is the college. That's not correct. We need to be working with them. We've got to be making informed decisions. If we're not making informed decisions, then we're not doing any value to what we're trying to do. The Minister talks about SFA and a great system; I totally agree with you. I totally agree it's one of the best, if not the best, in Canada.

I've had my children take the program. I've had my children take schooling down South and I've children take schooling up North. Both are meeting the needs. The North is, for some people, their comfort zone, the ability to stay in their home territory or in a centre like Yellowknife or Fort Smith. That's because they have family. They can rely on family. If they had to move down South, they're not going to have that family to support them. So again, this needs to be all taken into consideration when we're making decisions. Hard decisions have to be made, but they have to be made based on good evidence. If we're not doing good evidence then we're going to have the struggle we're having. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. O'Reilly.

Kevin O'Reilly

Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to start with some general comments about Education, Culture and Employment. I'll start with our youngest citizens. I've reviewed the business plan for the department, I've reviewed the main estimates, and I'm not sure where we are with the mandate commitment towards universal daycare. So I'll have some questions on that. The two-year deadline is coming up very quickly and I'm not sure what's being done by the department from that front.

Now, I'll talk about junior kindergarten implementation, and issues around this continue no matter what the Minister seems to say. There is no clear plan, there are no quarterly reports that he promised to the standing committee, and it's not fully funded despite whatever the government has said. The issue of inclusive schooling funding, Aboriginal languages funding for the junior kindergarten students, busing, those remain unresolved. What we need from this Minister is a clear unequivocal statement that says there's going to be full funding and that, if there are any shortfalls after talking to the district education authorities, I'm prepared to come forward with a supplementary appropriation that will deal with those shortfalls.

That's the kind of commitment and clear statement we need from this Minister, not this we're going to have magical mystery meetings with the district education authorities and try to get them to come up with the money. We need a clear commitment from this Minister. He's going to come forward with supplementary appropriation for any shortfalls.

Now, there still needs to be a lot of work done with Aboriginal Head Start, daycares, Montessori, to look at the implication of introducing JK for these other programs, and I don’t see that there has really been much progress made on any of those areas either.

When it comes to the school system, there are reductions in Inclusive Schooling Funding. I'll have questions about that. There is reduction in funding to the education authorities. They are also being told that they need to look into shared administrative services, come up with $600,000. Look, I'm all for efficiencies, and if it's done in a collaborative fashion, great, but top down I'm not sure this is going to work.

I'm going to move on now to post-secondary education. There are cuts to Student Financial Assistance. Like my colleague said, we have a fantastic program, and my children have benefited from that as well, but I'm concerned about these cuts. They say there's no uptake on the program. Well, all the money has been spent, so I'm not sure what the problem is here, but I'll have questions around that.

Then we get to Aurora College. I don’t understand why cuts are being made in our contribution. More than 10 per cent of their budget is being cut while they're preparing a strategic plan and while we're developing an accountability framework.

Why would you make cuts while you're doing these things? It just doesn't make any sense. You put the cart before the horse. I know Cabinet has its Fiscal Reduction Strategy and targets, but that's not a good enough reason to shortchange our post-secondary institutions.

There are, I think, also some issues with continued support for Dechinta and College nordique. I'm glad to hear that there's going to be a post-secondary education legislation brought forward this year; that's long overdue, but that's not where this has to end. We need a post-secondary education strategy for the Northwest Territories that will help move us towards university and a network of learning centres and so on, as I've said in this House.

There is some good news in this budget for this department and I've come to understand a little bit better the increased support for income support for our most disadvantaged people in the Northwest Territories, but as my colleague previous, the honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, mentioned the communications around this has just been terrible. It's taken me a long time to understand, and I don’t think the people of the Northwest Territories or the clients that we serve understand some of these changes very well, either.

I'll also have some questions, Mr. Chair, around the Small Community Employment Fund. Good to see more money going into it, but I'm worried we're not going to be able to get that money out the door because, if it remains as a wage subsidy program, that money is not going to get spent. We need to transition that into a job creation program so that there are more jobs available in small communities, get folks retrofitting our housing stock, and so on. There are ways to do this and move it from wage subsidies to job creation.

Those are my opening comments, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just a few items that I also want to speak about in my opening remarks on this department. First, the one that's having the greatest impact upon the communities I represent is junior kindergarten. The Minister has indicated that it is fully funded, but the amount doesn't fully fund junior kindergarten. At the outset, there was $2 million taken out of the school boards' funding to address junior kindergarten the first year of rollout.

That $2 million doesn't seem to be in the framework anywhere anymore, and I believe that these decisions were made by the school boards under some duress as well. My understanding is that the department had determined that there is a surplus of funding based on the way they're funding the PTR, which is another whole different issue as well. Based on that, there is a belief that there is accumulated surplus in the various boards.

So, essentially, the direction from this department to the school boards and the schools, I suppose, was that you guys had the money to take on the junior kindergarten and, if you don’t take on junior kindergarten, then the corresponding funding that the department thinks is targeted to support junior kindergarten financially will be removed from their budget.

So it's either take the kids or lose the money. So they did. So it cost the boards $2 million, but now that $2 million is not in the framework at all. That's a very important part of funding the junior kindergarten, when you consider there was also no inclusive schooling for the junior kindergarten students. I think it's known right across this country, maybe right across the whole world, that when you invest in the earlier ages, the greatest return on investment occurs at the youngest age.

Four-year-olds are now the youngest of the people that Education is responsible for; however, a decision has been made that, because your funding level is 2 per cent higher than the legislated amount in the Education Act, that it's fine; but it wasn't enough to start with. I mean, at one point there was no money in inclusive schooling. It's teachers who recognized that there had to be some funding put in inclusive schooling in order to support individuals.

There are two types of agreements that students get into; it's some sort of individual assessments on students that are maybe one or two years behind, or maybe more than that behind. Those students are supported by inclusive schooling. There is a high number of those students in the small communities, and it's not being funded. Now, on top of that, we're adding four-year-olds with no targeted inclusive schooling dollars and no targeted Aboriginal language instruction.

So now things start to get a little bit thinner in those areas in the support for students, I think, in Aboriginal instruction up to grade nine, and I think inclusive schooling also up to grade nine. So when you put in all of these, things start to compound the issue. So to pull out a number to say, well, we'll add $5.1 million, well, this side of the House makes the assumption that includes any money that's already been put into the framework, or asking the school boards to put in that money. I mean, this is a real mess here, and the department or the Minister is not seeing that. I can't understand why the government is not able to see that.

You've got four-year-olds going in, they have the best possible return on investment in all of the people that they're responsible for, and they're refusing to invest in it. Like I'm saying, it's known, when you start to deal with early childhood development, the returns are 7:1.

There is a saying in the business of early childhood development that if that was an actual investment, that would be the greatest investment that any person could make when you think about all your investment portfolios, and that is in young children. Early childhood development investment is the best there is, but we're not doing that. This budget doesn't do that, and it's very, very difficult to understand. When you have these things where you make an investment and you have a tremendous return, it's not happening, and I just don't understand.

The other thing I'm just going to touch briefly on, I have a few minutes left here, is the Small Community Employment Program. It was a really good thing that the government put $3 million into that program. We, on this side of the floor, were asking for $5 million, but that was the total. So $3 million was in addition to what was there, but our understanding when we finally said that's not too bad of a deal was that there was $1.3 million in the framework already, or in that budget item. There was actually only $300,000.

So we kind of were offered something that's $1.7 million short of our target, and having said all those things about kindergarten, you look at the budget, there's a cut to inclusive schooling. Now logically, if we lost a whole bunch of students, that kind of makes sense, but I don't think that's the case. I think the inclusive schooling situation is compounded by adding four-year-olds to the school system. It hasn't decreased the amount that we need for inclusive schooling. There's no indication that taking inclusive schooling money out of the budget is going to help the students or help the people of the Northwest Territories, no indication at all, but it's gone, $1.5 million. Maybe that's what went into junior kindergarten; I don't know.

In inclusive schooling, if you look at it statistically, we have one of the jurisdictions that had the highest rate of special support for students. We have one of the highest rates in the country for individual plans for students who are looking for support to advance to their grade level. Because we all know you no longer have grade 5 teachers, essentially; you have teachers of 10-year-olds, and they're at various levels. In order to make sure that individuals are advancing to the next level and are able to handle it and are able to go on, we need inclusive schooling to support them. If we don't have it, they're not going to advance.

When they get to grade ten and they're no longer getting that support, they're going to fail, and that's what's been happening. This inclusive schooling was negotiated by teachers so that they could support the students to increase the graduation rates. The students are a little behind, we're going to give them support, but no, this government is actually cutting that back. These are real serious issues in our education system.

I'll have a lot to say about Aurora College's TEP and social work programs, but that's going to have to come at another time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Nakimayak.

Herbert Nakimayak

Nunakput

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm looking at the pages and I see some lines for Aboriginal languages, cultural component and sports events, early childhood programming, healthy food for children and youth. I see the partnership between the Aboriginal Head Start Program and the junior kindergarten in my region.

I'm going to talk from a small community perspective. I see the benefits of the program, how it's rolling out in the region. In January it just rolled out in one of the smallest communities in my region, and it's starting to benefit especially families who can't afford a babysitter sometimes, or sometimes there are no childcare services in the community, and I see the benefits of that and I support that.

You know, every program when you start to see it rolled out, it's never perfect. If we wait until everything is perfect, it will never roll out. So we need to start looking at how we can improve things, and I see this as a good opportunity for that.

I see Aboriginal languages. Last week there was an agreement between the Crown and the Inuit, and I hope that we can develop partnerships between the Inuit and Indigenous peoples with the GNWT to ensure that our Indigenous communities are getting a fair share of funding and they're working specifically for each region's culture and language.

Healthy food for children. I know the cost of living in my region is the highest. We need to ensure that the kids are fed with breakfast programs and programs alike that will help them just to concentrate in school. Sometimes when you're not fed, school is the last thing on your mind, and if you can feed the children you're making a difference for them to carry out their days.

I agree with Mr. Blake; he talked about on-the-land programs. We need to ensure that the cultural aspect of our community is never lost, and actually we need to strengthen those a little bit every opportunity we can. I know the Minister mentioned that there would be less class time and more time on the land; I think that's a huge benefit, especially in my region, where subsistence harvesting is a main staple for food. We don't have the opportunity or the likes of five or six grocery stores in one community; sometimes there's only one. One of the Members stated that there was nothing in one of his communities, so programs like that are important to roll out, and sometimes they don't alleviate the issue but as well again they contribute to the success of people, ensuring that their cultures stay strong and healthy in every aspect they can.

I don't have much more to say, but, you know, all in all in junior kindergarten I see the benefits in my region and I'd like to see how the Inuvialuit themselves and the GNWT work together to ensure that this program is refined more to the needs of the children, and also the parents. Junior kindergarten is not about just the kids. It's about the parents as well, too. It will help strengthen those bonds between teachers and parents and their children as they roll into kindergarten. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Nakimayak. Mr. Nadli.

Michael Nadli

Deh Cho

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. [English translation not provided]. I, too, had some comments in terms of some common themes that reflect the riding that I represent.

Just to start off, this department saw a decrease from last year of 1.5 per cent. It is one of two biggest departments besides Health and Social Services that take a big chunk of this $1.8 billion operation that we call GNWT.

Just some things that I wanted to highlight. I know this department is moving forward on the Education Act. In my recent discussion with one of the communities that I represent, they wanted to ensure that, if there is a sincere effort in terms of the recent cooperation agreement with governments and communities, in the spirit of devolution and looking at collaboration and working together, the Education Act has to reflect the rights of people, and especially Indigenous people that uphold the treaty of 1921.

I understand that section 35 as a guide in terms of legal jurisprudence is defined in the courts at the same time. It also affects policy in how government operates its programs and services, especially for First Nations people. In this particular case, the Education Act has to consider that and ensure that there is proper consultation and consent from Indigenous people either in respect of programs and services, or else just the nature of government and how they act in terms of delivering those general programs for all communities, but especially for First Nations communities.

The other point that I wanted to highlight, too, is the concern in terms of enrolment in the schools that have been brought up, and whether that affects budgets. There is always some fine-tuning at the end of the fiscal year. There are some anxieties, maybe in some respects, in terms of maybe more efforts could be made to ensure that our enrolment figures, and especially in small communities, are up to par with the larger regional centres, also like Yellowknife as well.

On that note, it is just recently that we came across the declining population of small communities. I think most of us around the table have at one point or another come from small communities, and we want to ensure they continue to exist and thrive within, at least, the mosaic of the NWT.

On that point, what concerns me, there are two reasons why people are moving from the smaller communities into their regional centres and the larger cities like Yellowknife. One of them is job opportunities, and the other one is education. Education because parents want to bring further opportunities and more growth and vitality in terms of programming services, activities, extracurricular activities to their children so they can get a wellrounded education in the larger centres, and perhaps in the city as well.

I think that has to be cited as a concern. Perhaps, in terms of reflection, the department has to address that. How do you ensure that we have a very effective school system with adequate resources and adequate teachers to ensure that the curriculum is properly and effectively delivered for our students so they can be successful in the small communities? I think that's a concern that the department has to reflect on, and perhaps respond to that.

In that same note, too, it's concerning that we are seeing some cuts and pull-backs of program initiatives, especially for post-secondary students, students who want to further their education beyond high school. There is some indication that perhaps community colleges could be in jeopardy.

As I speak right now, there is a leadership program in my home community, and more likely other communities, too, as well. This is trying to at least give the formal basic framework of leadership program development at the local level. When people choose to try and live in their communities and decide not to move beyond their communities because they can see those services being delivered in the community, then we need to make sure that it is successful and the government commits to maintaining that service.

The other big point, of course, is Aboriginal Head Start versus JK. It doesn't have to be like that. I keep hearing about it: junior kindergarten versus Aboriginal Head Start. I think the lines have been drawn. I think more effort has to be made to address that. Perhaps it is becoming entrenched. Maybe it is beyond repairable.

We did have a motion in the House recommending that the government act so that those two initiatives will continue to operate, but at the same time, in parallel, co-exist, in that we need to draw some attention to that to ensure that they both succeed.

At the same time, it has been noted that perhaps this Minister has to work with his federal colleagues. Recently, the Prime Minister of Canada came up North and made a very visible effort to be in one of the Aboriginal Head Start Programs in the NWT. Similarly, the Minister should take some efforts in terms of working with the federal colleagues to give assurances to the Aboriginal Head Start program staff to the program itself, despite the commitment of funding until 2020, there has to be more measured assurances that that program will continue.

My final point is in terms of languages. There are lots of buzzwords: "promotion," "preservation," "revitalization". I understand this department is going forward with an accountability and planning framework in ensuring that -- not a matter of throwing money to the situations or problems and then walking away from that. We have seen that. We all have responsibilities to communities, and they have tackled some very fundamental challenges in terms of capacity.

Similarly, there used to be at least a point of consideration in terms of understanding the roles of this government, its obligation to the Official Languages Act; namely, to Indigenous languages, that more could be done, but at the same time, if there are projects and programs out there that are successful, we need to build upon that and ensuring that we are just not devolving dollars to regions or communities and then walking away from that. We need to ensure that we have sustained effort, and that those are measurable outputs that we seek, at least, to hail as being very successful.

My final point is that my colleagues had raised the idea of small community employment initiatives. It is not just a wage subsidy. When I think of a wage subsidy, it is basically looking at the summer employment program initiatives for student who come back for the summer; we give them jobs. That wage subsidy does exist, but I think more has to be done in terms of ensuring that there is a focus on job creation so that it is successful; at the very least, we expect it from the small communities. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Testart.

Kieron Testart

Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some opening comments for this department. Much has been said by my honourable friends on the issues surrounding junior kindergarten, inclusive education, Aboriginal Head Start, and many of the more high-profile issues that we have debated in this Chamber. One thing is clear: the focus of the Minister's responsibilities are very much geared toward education, and currently the priority seems to be on pre-kindergarten-to-12 education, and the supports for students after the fact.

We are not taking a hard look at some of the other responsibilities and giving them, I think, proper emphasis, one of those being culture and heritage. There is a new heritage plan, and the Minister provided a briefing on just the other day. I think it is good, but that plan, it is fairly clear that we are only now just starting to think about what culture and heritage mean to our government and developing these resources. I think perhaps we need to rethink where culture sits within the responsibilities of this government and start really emphasizing how we can develop our arts programs, our arts infrastructure, and seeing those as real opportunities to invest in Northerners and, equally, to invest in new opportunities for destination for marketing for tourism.

This department has a very important role to play in supporting tourism and making the North an attractive and vibrant place for people to live and people to visit. There is some work being done, but again, I think we need to bring that part of the portfolio into sharper focus and to have a more concrete emphasis on delivering that.

Postsecondary, as well; I think we are only starting to think about postsecondary, and the longer we take to figure out what we are doing with postsecondary education in the Northwest Territories, the more ground we lose to Yukon College, which has done amazing work. We have a real opportunity to develop our own style of postsecondary here in the Northwest Territories that is distinct and that can fulfill that longstated goal of a university for the Arctic in Canada. We have fantastic partners in College nordique and Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, and we have seen a bit of funding increases for both of those organizations, which is welcome, but, again, they are being held back by a lack of focus on where we want to take postsecondary education.

Even now, we are seeing huge cuts and very unpopular cuts to Aurora College that surprise students, faculty, and MLAs. That is a short list, but it clearly shows that people are not ready for this shift so abruptly. That strategic plan, it is not just a piece of bureaucratic work. It is certainly a plan that needs public engagement and investment so the people can get behind it. A lot of people care about Aurora College, and what it represents as an opportunity to Northerners can't be overstated. So we can't be seen as a government that takes opportunities away from Northerners. We have to be seen as a government, and we have to be a government that invests in new opportunities for Northerners, and enhancing the current opportunities for Northerners, as well.

Personally, I can't support nor do I think the government should support drastic program cuts without completing that strategic plan. Furthermore, I think that we really need to think about where we are taking our other postsecondary partners and how we want that playing field to look. Do we want Aurora College to be a polytechnic? It is in labour market development, so it seems to be geared towards job creation, and yet it hasn't very much changed. These are questions we have to ask. Until we see that strategic plan, they are very hard to ask.

I think there are also millions of dollars of research funding, as well, endowments across the country that could be flowing into the NWT if we really capitalize on knowledge economy opportunities. Currently, the ARI, Aurora Research Institute, there is a North Slave office that does not even have technical facilities to work in. All those facilities are in Inuvik, and that position does not have a travel budget to go to Inuvik to work in those facilities, so they have to raise the money through granting, grants and endowments in order to travel to where we have the facility in the first place.

It is things like that that are unrealized opportunities to leverage knowledge and research opportunities to bring more investment and skilled technical people into the Northwest Territories. We had scientists even here for two, three years. It makes a difference. It makes a difference in what they can contribute. The North is a leader in climate change research, probably more so in northern Canada and certainly the world, and we could be applying for a research chair within the ARI and bring basically free investment and more research opportunities here. We are not doing these things. I am not sure if it is because we have not thought to do these things.

I think the very thorough examination of the K12 and early childhood supports, I think the department is very mindful of those. They clearly have issues rolling those out successfully, but the other components of the department, I think, need a lot of work. This budget does not really address those. There are, of course, the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning to fully offset the costs of junior kindergarten, and there is some dispute on whether or not that is actually occurring, and, of course, enhancing the small community employment support program by an additional $2 million to a total of $5 million.

These recommendations continue to be held by the honourable Members of the standing committee, and we will continue to pursue those, as we believe these are crucial investments that will support the longterm health and success of our people and ultimately reduce the cost of supporting people who do not have jobs and do not have those opportunities that they are so desperate for. We will continue to support those. We will continue to discuss these issues as we go into this business plan, and I look forward to more thorough discussion with the Minister and his staff about what we can do to support culture and postsecondary in particular. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Mr. Vanthuyne.

Cory Vanthuyne

Yellowknife North

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just touch quickly on some of the aspects that my colleagues touched on that I, too, will be sharing some concern about and raising questions on but remain hopeful that we can find solutions together. Of course, that is junior kindergarten, early childhood development, our Aurora College and what it means to our territory, and recent cuts to programs there, in particular social work and the Teacher Education Program.

I also want to raise some points, Mr. Chair, as it relates to, aside from the education aspects, but the labour development aspects that this department is accountable for and puts out in terms of programs and services and what have you. I think, obviously, the Skills 4 Success program is something that is really tied into this area and in helping us work toward developing and continuing to develop our efforts in trades development and technical skills through support for apprenticeship programs, mentorshiptype programs. These are critical for us to start to fill gaps within different industries.

Speaking of gaps, I think it is very important that this department works with other departments in identifying where particular industry gaps are and developing some specific skill sets that can help to fill those gaps. We know that there are some initiatives under way right now with regard to tourism, which is very positive to hear.

As one of my colleagues alluded to earlier, the creative arts are very important. This is an area I think that once upon a time received no focus at all but is now proving to be an industry unto itself, and one that, in fact, contributes to innovation more than we ever expected and is going to continue to do so and, in fact, is arguably going to lead the way as it leads to innovation. So I think it is very important that this department recognizes the goals and objectives of this government and the goals we have set out as a territory to begin to diversify in a number of areas. The creative industry is certainly one of those areas where we have got to put some prime focus.

I think that, as it relates to postsecondary education, it is going to be very difficult for me, if I can just get into the weeds for one moment, to support a budget that is going to see the reduction of the social work and the Teacher Education Program. I have trouble understanding how that meets the mandate goals of this government. I have trouble understanding how we will meet our TRC obligations when these are the types of programs in our Northern-made college that are designed for us to specifically reach and attain those goals and meet those obligations. So I'm sure there will be a lot more questioning and comments raised around that.

To Aurora College, like other colleagues have shared, I like Aurora College for what it is in terms of what it provides to the young folks of the Northwest Territories and what it is intended to do. I think we have a lot of opportunity to enhance what it is, and I'm looking forward to what comes out of the review and the plan. I, for one, am not one who supports reinventing Aurora College and trying to turn it into something that it isn’t, like a university or what have you.

Because I do believe that we as a territory need to support more than just Aurora College, that we most certainly have to start supporting alternative post-secondary education opportunities. There are folks on our doorstep proving, and proving statistically, that this is something we're capable of doing here in the North, and we certainly have got to show that we're investing in that and that we're going to work to build those partnerships and enhance those partnerships.

I'll touch also just quickly, because I think it falls in line with this department as well, is the fact that, you know, just the last Assembly Mr. Chair was working heavily toward a population growth strategy, and it seems to have taken a back seat to some degree, and I know it's through Education, Culture and Employment that we have to tie into the immigration policy. We've got to make sure that immigration efforts are being streamlined and that they're accessible and they're actually delivering upon the goals that we've set out as a government to promote immigration.

So I think, Mr. Chair, I'll let it at that for now and I look forward to us engaging in this department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Seeing no further general comments, I will turn to the Minister for a response. Minister Moses, you have 10 minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank all the honourable Members for all their comments and their concerns, and over the past three weeks there's a lot of common theme that every honourable Member has mentioned here today. I don’t really want to get into detail regarding those, but first off I just really do want to emphasize that this Department of Education, Culture and Employment does, in fact, do a lot of good work as well in the territory. We have a lot of good employees who do a lot of good work for residents, whether it's in income assistance, the JK-to-12 system, post-secondary. So as much as it seems like there's a painting of a grim picture that we do support our residents of the NWT and that we also do have a lot of success stories, and I think some Members can appreciate that and agree with that as well, and we see it in all the communities across the NWT.

First off, the Member for Mackenzie Delta did mention funding for junior kindergarten, and I just want to clarify that junior kindergarten will be rolled out in all communities across the Northwest Territories. There was a little bit of confusion there, I think, where he was saying that some communities might take it on, some might not. It is optional for the parents, the families, so I just wanted to clarify that.

I do want to continue to support the Take a Kid Trapping in schools. We do work with ITI and ENR, and we'll continue to work with them to make sure that we provide that cultural awareness and traditional knowledge in training for our youth right up until grade 12.

There was some concern about communication. I don’t disagree. I think we could have done a better job. The Member from YK Centre did bring that up as a concern. I do think that there could have been better communication on some of the initiatives as we were rolling them out earlier on in this Assembly, as well as early on in the session, and we'll continue to work on that. It is a learning experience.

In terms of the instructional hours, that was work done with three of our education bodies, as well as the NWT Teachers' Association and Education, Culture and Employment.

We do want to see success in our students and get the best outcomes, but we've also got to make sure that we take care of the health and wellbeing of our teachers and our instructors. They're the adults that our children see probably the most or second most throughout their lifetime from when they're a child to when they graduate, and we want to make sure that they have every opportunity to provide the best education to our students.

Language culture and income assistance is also a concern, and when we get to the line-by-line item we will clarify again, but we are seeing more families across the NWT receiving more money in the Income Assistance Program. The Member from Nahendeh did mention some other concerns, and communication and messaging was another concern; as I mentioned, I don’t disagree with that, but we can work on making improvements.

Junior kindergarten, we have seen really strong success in the Member's riding. Having it as a huge issue, I know we were having some pushback when it initially started, and even now that we're implementing we're still getting some concerns. We just want to let all Members know that we have had those consultations with the daycares, we have had those consultations with Aboriginal Head Start, and any other daycares or day home providers and making sure they're aware of the work we're doing. It's not that we're forgetting them; we have made changes to our early childhood programming where costs go up for infants who come in. In some communities, such as Yellowknife, there are waiting lists, and we want to make sure that every family has an opportunity to have their children be able to partake in some kind of early development.

That's something that the Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh mentioned, and I do appreciate his passion for early childhood development. As I mentioned, we made changes to early childhood programming and we have excellent start-up costs for daycares and day homes, and we have actually been working with some of the smallest communities that don’t have daycares right now to help them set up and start up, as well as training for early childhood providers that they get better training but they also get increase their wage subsidies.

There was also some concern about the structure of authorities within the education system and who is kind of in charge of who. As a department, we provide over $150 million to all our education authorities. It's the mandate, the responsibility of the education authorities to roll out our contributions with them, so whether it's busing, whether it's inclusive schooling, whether it's where they want to put money in their arts and languages, that's the sole responsibility of the education authorities. We provide funding, we work with them, we provide resource services, but when we give the dollars to the education authorities it's their responsibility to see how they budget those out. We can discuss that in detail further.

There still seems to be some confusion on the dollars for JK. We're not just throwing a figure out there. The $5.1 million was based on estimates of the four-year-olds going into the education system this year, and as soon as we know the final cost we will make the necessary changes to that, and you've heard that within this government. I know the honourable Member for Frame Lake said that we need come back if it's more; then we'd have to have that discussion with our Finance Minister. That is something that we have discussed, and so that's where we are.

Any decisions that we make, I know the post-secondary with Aurora College has been a common theme and has been in the news quite a bit. We do make evidence-based decisions. We didn't tell them what to do; they didn't tell us what to do. It was collaborative work between our departments, Aurora College, and the executive to see where we can look at those reductions.

Universal child daycare, we will give an update as we get into the line items. Inclusive schooling, there was discussion around that. As you know, they were from the 17th Assembly in transition to the 18th. There was a Ministerial Directive on Inclusive Schooling. We wanted to ensure that the dollars, the money that we've given to inclusive schooling, and you'll see the line item there, it's over $25 million I believe, we want to make sure that that money goes to the child's needs. Before that, there was no accountability behind that; some schools didn't have any program support teachers. Under the new ministerial directive every school in the NWT will have a program support teacher to ensure that the child's needs are met, and that directive is ensuring that those dollars that are flowing go exactly to the child's needs, where before there wasn't a full plan in place

I know there was some discussion about a decrease in the education authority's funding, and the Members are right; it is in administration, and we do want to see some efficiency in administration across the NWT.

Now the student financial cuts, when we do get to the line-by-line item, this is something that we brought up before, almost on a yearly basis we get about $1.3 million that's overlapsed funding. So because we kept on seeing it coming around regularly, we figured that we could just take that into the reductions.

I'm also glad to see that there was some concern round the Small Community Employment Support Program. As I mentioned in my statement a couple of days ago, with the $1.2 million currently in the SCES funding we had 200 residents in the NWT participate in on-the-job training and then another 69 in community initiatives. So that funding is working and we've increased it by putting $3 million into that program.

In terms of the decrease in budget, there was a comment that this budget has decreased by 1.5 per cent. The reality is, and I did make it in my opening statements last night, our budget has decreased by 0.3 per cent, and we're still providing programs right across the broad spectrum of this department.

I also understand the proper consultation that the honourable Member from Deh Cho has mentioned, and we're continuing to work on that and we'll make it an emphasis when we're working with First Nations communities that we do, in fact, do a proper consultation and make sure that they're involved in some of the decision-making.

Enrolments, we have been seeing a decrease in enrolments in the school system, specifically in some of our small communities, and we need to find a way to address that and work with families and communities as well.

In terms of Aboriginal Head Start in junior kindergarten, we do have two communities where it's working really well, and that's Fort McPherson and Ndilo, where families now have the opportunity to have full-time early childhood programming provided to them, where before it was just half a day. With JK itself, schools will have the option of providing half- and full-time programming.

With just that said, I just want to say that a lot of good comments and a lot of good feedback, and I appreciate the passion that the Members have. As we go line by line we'll get into more detail. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was a quick 10 minutes.

Thank you, Minister, for covering the 90 they had versus your 10. I allowed a couple of seconds.

Thank you, committee. The department begins on page 23. As it is our custom, we will defer the total department until after consideration of activity details. The first activity is corporate management. The activity description is found on page 30. The activity details are on 31, and the active positions information item is found on 32. Does committee have any questions, and can the Member refer to which page item within that activity, please? Mr. Testart.

Kieron Testart

Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Would this, the corporate management, be an activity to start to have a discussion around communications issues within the department? Thank you

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, this would be the area, under policy legislation and communications.

Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Testart.

Kieron Testart

Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As many of my honourable friends have mentioned, the communications exercises that the department has been engaged in I don't think have been meeting either the department's goals or the public interest. Junior kindergarten, quite frankly, was a mess from the first roll-out to where we are today; we're still trying to sort through that mess. My honourable friend the Member for Frame Lake referred to it as slippery as a dead fish; that made, I think, the front page of the local newspaper, and I think we're all feeling that way.

I know the Minister is trying his best, but I think it's so hard because the communications function of this department is severely lacking. What is the Minister proposing to do in light of this and other significant communications issues in the past to improve this function and ensure that the right information is getting to the public and to honourable Members of this House? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I don't disagree with all the honourable Members who have mentioned the communication issues surrounding junior kindergarten. I definitely think that it could have rolled out a lot better, getting that information not only out to the Members but to the residents. We are working on our communications protocol and making sure that we're making it as sufficient as we can in the future. As I mentioned earlier, we take it as a learning experience and we'll be learning from this and making sure that, as we communicate, there will be more efficiency a lot sooner than later. I will go to my deputy for a little bit more clarity as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.