Thank you. I’d like to keep the Minister of ECE busy today and I wish we were on solar power right now.
Mr. Speaker, the question to the Minister, I know there has been an Early Childhood Development Program review going on. It’s partly related, of course, to the Aboriginal Student Initiative review, which was completed and is, I think, being implemented now. Could we get an update from the Minister on the Early Childhood Development from the Minister of ECE? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The Early Childhood Development framework has been a key in our discussions at the forum with Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. It’s on our radar within the ECE department. We are going through the final stages of the recommendations. The changes are forthcoming and we’re finalizing that within our Education department. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate those remarks. Good to hear. I see early childhood development as the answer; one of the big answers to many of our issues in the health, education and the justice field, a huge opportunity. So we need to get these things in place. Ninety percent of what we know of the brain today has been learned in the last decade. We need to incorporate that. There are amazing relationships being discovered, and opportunities for savings and treating our people better. So will the Minister tell us when we will be getting this information and can we expect to see it in the business plans for the remainder of 2012-13?
The Member is correct about the high importance of this particular subject. Early childhood has been in the forefront in discussions at the regional forums. At all forums I have attended, that has been at the forefront of the discussion. We need to focus on the unborn child. The children are one year old or six months old. We need to start from there. So with this particular piece of work before us, as I stated, it’s been finalized within my department. The plan is to initiate that through our business planning process, the discussions we are going to be having with the standing committee, I’m hoping we will have before the 2012-2013 business planning cycle. If not, it will be at a later time, but that is part of our goals and objectives to do that, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
