R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so what the facilities plan is you know, it's essentially a capital plan but it's where it's longterm. You need to look at all of the campuses as well as the community learning centres, and we want to make sure that we're starting from a place we want to make sure we have a plan from the getgo and that ensures we want to ensure everything is integrated, everything works together. And I actually just had my first meeting with the contractors who are have been going out and speaking with the communities and Indigenous governments and the college to do this work...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Generally when we release strategies/action plans, they're quite high level, relatively big, but I said, no, we're going to get down into the weeds with this one and so we have timelines; we have dollar amounts; we have very discrete actions. And what comes with that is the fact that things don't always work out the way you would like. Sometimes you don't have the money. Sometimes other things get in the way. And sometimes positive things happen that can even set you back. So in this instance, with this particular item, the development of a literacy and numeracy...

Thank you. And I think the Member is greatly oversimplifying what a university is. It's more than just a collection of different research groups and educational facilities. There are quality standards that need to be met, minimums of research, and all of these different types of things. But I get what the Member is saying. There is a you know, we are seeing a robust postsecondary environment develop in the Northwest Territories, and the GNWT is supporting that not only through the transformation of the college but with the Postsecondary Education Act. And there is strong communication...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so we are looking to reduce the cost of childcare by 50 percent on average. And so what that average is, is the average of all childcare providers who charge for childcare. So we do not factor in all of the hundreds of childcare spaces that are available free of cost, many provided by Indigenous governments in smaller communities. The average that we're looking to reduce by 50 percent is based only on childcare providers that actually charge money. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I know that ECE, we are not part of this mandate commitment, but humbly, I think that ECE does more for food security than anyone through the income assistance program. We ensure that people can have food on their plates.

To answer the Member's specific questions, inflation, cost of living increases, are not automatically included in income assistance year after year. That is an initiative that the department has to go and seek funding for. It is not something that is done automatically. I don't believe that it's done automatically for most of our programs. But...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, we would never expect anyone to sign a contract that they haven't seen.

There's been a number of meetings between ECE officials and childcare providers, whether that's day home or childcare centres, and there has been a number of documents provided to childcare providers, and those documents contain all of the information that is contained in the actual contribution agreement. It's a contribution agreement, not a contract. So I just wanted to clarify that as well because childcare providers can have contracts with parents, but they would have a contribution...

Thank you, and the Member is correct. He has heard about this many times before. This is in our original mandate, and I have been bringing it up time and time again.

This is separating people who are essentially out of the workforce, people who don't expect to go back into the workforce, from people who are, you know, in and out of the workforce. So income assistance has different types of clients. Some of those clients are ablebody people who are in between jobs who have fallen on hard times and who just need some assistance, and they will be on income support for a short amount of time...

Thank you. I don't think we're going to be doing that at this time. We've seen a reduction in our travel budgets as well as our, you know, contract services are tight, and it is difficult to you know, we have to make some difficult choices. So we have many avenues where we work with Indigenous governments and communities. And you know, we're going to continue to do that in the best way possible. But at this time, I can't commit to something like that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So this is something that is ongoing. There are timelines listed in the mandate, and there's funding flowing every single year to the tune of over $4 million to small communities to create jobs. So hundreds of jobs are created each year, and the communities just need to opt in and they can provide those funds to different organizations within the community, even private businesses, to create jobs. We are working on in the coming fiscal year, those are going to turn into multiyear agreements so that communities can plan so there's some sustainability with those jobs. It's...

Thank you. So the working group has been established. It has come up with some great ideas, doing some great work. Thank you.