To the motion.
Question.
The Member for Tu NedheWiilideh. The Member for Deh Cho. The Member for Yellowknife Centre. The Member for Range Lake. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake. The Member for Monfwi. The Member for Frame Lake. The Member for Great Slave. The Member for Mackenzie Delta. The Member for Yellowknife North.
All those opposed, please stand. All those abstaining, please stand.
The Member for Yellowknife South. The Member for Kam Lake. The Member for Hay River North. The Member for Hay River South. The Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. The Member for Nunakput.
To the motion, ten yeses. Zero nos. Six abstention. The motion has passed.
Carried
Motions. Notices of motion for the first reading of bills. First reading of bills. Second reading of bills.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters. Minister's Statement 420(1), Minister's Statement 520(1), Minister's Statement 1720(1), Minister's Statement 2420(1), Tabled Document 9320(1).
I now call the Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of the committee? I would like to go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Committee of the Whole wishes to consider Tabled Document 9320(1), 20242025 Main Estimates, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Thank you.
Thank you. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. We will proceed with the first item.
Members, we have agreed to review Tabled Document 9320(1), Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We will resume with key activity corporate management on page 37. Does the Minister of ECE wish to bring witnesses into the House?
Yes, please.
Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Sergeantatarms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Thank you.
Would the Minister please introduce her witnesses.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, to my left I have Mr. Jamie Fulford, who is the deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment. And to my right, I have Shannon BarnettAikman, who is the assistant deputy minister of education and early learning.
Thank you. Committee, before the motion last night Members concluded questions. Therefore, we will proceed with a vote on this key activity.
Education, Culture and Employment, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, 20242025 Main Estimates, $12,456,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. I'm going to go back and ask the question again, and I'd like to have a show of hands.
Education, Culture and Employment, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, 20242025 Main Estimates, $12,456,000. Does the committee agree, by show of hands.
Agreed.
The motion's carried. Thank you.
Carried
Okay, thank you. Moving on to early learning beginning on page 39 with information items on page 41 to 43. Are there any questions? Okay, I have the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, can the Minister please tell me how far along the department is into developing regulations for daycare workers under the $10aday program, please. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, can the Member clarify if they're speaking in regards to the wage grid regulations?
Sorry, I'll go back to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, and requirements for yes, and yes, and the requirements for workers' education, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, those regulations are still in development. And so they go through a process where they are we work closely with the Department of Justice to do that. And then before they can go public for consultation sorry, engagement, they must be translated. And so that's the part of the process that we are in right now. And so as soon as the translation is complete, then those will be available for public engagement. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going back to the Member from Great Slave.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. That's a nice shout back to Minister of Justice for more French translating drafters.
I'm curious around specifically, you know, what we're going to be asking of our workforce in the early childhood operator piece, especially around some of the asks for their education. And so does the Minister know when that piece will be out for public engagement in hopefully this year, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I will definitely put in a plug for, you know, if anybody has any French translating drafters out there, who are both lawyers and very skilled in the language of French and translations, please come live in the Northwest Territories and make this your home. We have some work for you. But, yes, as soon as we can get that done, that is something that I very much look forward to getting out for engagement and making sure that we can put that new regulation in play. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'll let other Members dive into this one. Thank you.
Is there any further questions from Members? I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So for this this budget proposes to create, I think, 75 child care new child care spaces, which is a good thing. But what is the total need based on what we know of waitlists across the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, unfortunately, we don't have a master waitlist or a database capable of ensuring that people are only on a waitlist once in the territory. We have anecdotal information from day homes and daycares but unfortunately we know that it's not accurate because having been in the situation myself, I can attest to the fact that as parents, we put our names on multiple lists to ensure that we make it to the top, hopefully, of one of them when we need child care. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Range Lake.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And as a parent with young children in care, and I lost care and needed to find new arrangements, I can tell you it's not easy. And anyone who is still on those lists and does not have care, I have so much sympathy for. You know, it feels like smuggling narcotics, you know, like, flying under the radar to try to get access somewhere because there's so few spaces. So my concern is we can say 75 new spaces across you know, and that's great we're creating new spaces, but if the total need is 7500, then this is nothing, right, in the grand scheme of things. So how are we measuring the need in a useful way that we can actually point resources at it? Because if again, if the need is exponentially greater than 75, we have a lot more work to do in this area. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'd love to see a day where, you know, people can put themselves on a list, and we have a centralized database that is shared among licensed child care providers. But we simply do not have that type of digital technology within ECE, let alone most of the government at this point in time. I would, for sure, love to see significant investments in digital technology and innovation in that area within the GNWT, but it would take significant investment, and it's one that I simply don't have the dollars for at this time within the department. That being said, I would love to be able to speak a little bit to infrastructure and the fact that we do need physical infrastructure to be able to create those spaces, so work is being done in that realm as well.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Range Lake. Thank you. So how many spaces does the department currently fund? Thank you.
I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're just pulling up that information right now. Potentially maybe we could come back to the Member on the exact number of total spaces in the territory that we are funding. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. Yeah, if that comes up during this thing, just feel free to shout it out and I'll write it down. But I think that could potentially give us a sense of where we're at.
So another concern I've heard is from day home providers is that the ratios could be tweaked to allow for more spaces, especially in the transition between infants to, like, child where there's a different ratio at play. And if we created a different space or a different child to caregiver ratio, we could expand that a little bit and create less headaches for parents and improve the overall spaces without overburdening providers.
Ratios, as I understand it, are not a scientific formula. They are just decided by a province or territory based on I'm not sure what they're based on and neither are the providers, but they vary from province to province. And, you know, some are more generous, some are less. So is the Minister open to well, yeah, this is a good question. So where are our where do we get our ratio data from; what's the basis for our ratios? Thank you.
