R.J. Simpson

Thank you. That's a good question, and those are the kinds of questions that we have to answer every time we spend money, what was actually achieved by this. This is a difficult file, in many ways, because there are so many barriers to improving access and affordability. Some of those are the fact that it's difficult to find people to do this work, and so, you know, wage subsidies that are offered through this program help to retain employees for daycares who may have otherwise not continued to be employed. Is that concrete evidence? Perhaps we need to do a better job of evaluating this. I can...

No, I haven't looked into that. It would be difficult to sort of extrapolate that from other jurisdictions, to say, "This has worked in other jurisdictions, so it will also work in the territory." We are vastly different from most places that would do this type of research. I have been very open with the Members that I want to have an Income Assistance program that helps people get back into the job market. A lot of people on Income Assistance, they are in and out. Some, there are additional barriers that keep them out of that job market. What are those and how can we assist them to get into...

Thank you. Yes, that can be shared with standing committee. I think it likely has to be shared with the Cabinet, but not for decision, prior to going to standing committee, but I have no problem doing that. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a line that says "inclusive schooling," but that doesn't mean that all of our efforts related to inclusive schooling are contained in that line item. We talked about the child and youth care counsellors; we talked about the territorial support team; what we're doing with education renewal and innovation. All of that is related to this idea of inclusive schooling. As well, the mandate talks about renewing the Education Act, doing work to review inclusive schooling and address some of the issues that have emerged over the years. Virtually everything we do in education in the...

Thank you. In the early years of the agreement, money could be carried over, and so it shows up in here as more money at certain times. Then we have the decrease in the early childhood development and learning agreement due to the fact that it's sunsetting. Those are the issues with that. I agree; investments in early childhood are the best bang for your buck you can get, probably across any department. Thank you.

Thank you. That flexibility is available. We can do that, from my understanding, without a change to the regulations or any acts, and so again that is the type of initiative we might be looking at. We need to be flexible. We have journeymen retiring at an accelerating rate, it seems like, and we have not been doing what we need to do to replace them over the past number of years. All across Canada, we are facing a shortage in skilled labour, and, just like anything else, the North is an extreme example of that. This is at the front of my mind. We are not going to build local economies, we are...

Thank you, and I appreciate the Member's comments. Just this upcoming weekend is the K'amba Carnival in Hay River, so we talk about culture and language and arts, and it's very close to home. I appreciate the Member's comments, and I would love to see increases across the board in all of the great things that we do. We'll have those discussions over the next year about how we're going to allocate our funds. Thank you.

Thank you. That is due to a sunset of the Early Learning and Child Care Agreement with the Government of Canada. Thank you.

Thank you. Making his first appearance at the witness table, Mr. Saturnino.

Thank you, and thank you to the Member for the comment. With such a large department, with such a large budget, an increase that would be a large percentage in another department might not show up as such a large increase here, but I appreciate the Member's support for education and advancing the priorities of the Assembly. Thank you, Madam Chair.