Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are going to refer to early childhood development programming and infrastructure, keeping on the theme with all the good work that the Children First Society is doing up in Inuvik. I want to ensure that these programs are also provided to our small communities and our other regional centres, as well as here in Yellowknife.
I’m going to refer to the status report of the Auditor General of Canada, and specifically measuring the impact of early childhood education, there were a few things that were mentioned that needed to be taken into account. The department did follow up by creating an early childhood environmental rating scale. However, from that rating scale, the department has not been in a position to revise its early childhood development programming because it has not yet collected sufficient data, according to what this has said. So I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what the department has done to date to improve this specific program in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Since the report came out, the recommendations, my department committed to follow through with each and every one of them, and one of the areas that we did highlight through our discussion within the department is implementing the early childhood development instrument where we need to identify the early years of those students, the child, the learning, the first year that data has been collected using the EDI tool, and that tool will definitely guide us in decision-making for better healthy childhood development throughout the communities of the Northwest Territories.
Also, there are areas that we’ve improved on, as well, throughout my department. There’s expanding early health and family programming. We’re working closely with the Department of Health and Social Services, restructuring child and youth development funding for early childhood promotion programming, developing the community wellness plans. Those are just some of the areas that we will continue to improve, and also inspecting the child care, the daycares as well. There are scheduled plans in place with target dates and so forth. So we are very serious about the recommendations that were brought forward and we will follow through with each and every one of them. Mahsi.
I commend the work that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is doing in addressing the issues from the Auditor General’s report. The Minister made reference to it, but he did mention the inspections of daycare facilities and making sure that all daycare facilities are up to code. I was wondering if the Minister can provide us with a specific update on how many of our daycare facilities in the Northwest Territories are exactly up to code so that we can provide the adequate services in a safe and healthy environment for our early childhood children and staff as well. Thank you.
Mahsi. I definitely will provide detailed information of the childhood inspection licensing action plan and also the schedule. We do have a schedule in place as of this month, October, until early next year, spring. We want to follow through with each and every recommendation that was brought forward according to the Auditor General’s report. It is a very serious issue, especially dealing with early childhood. So I will be providing that detailed information to the Members. Mahsi.
Thank you. The main concern here is we want to provide services and programs for the families out there in terms of early childhood programming. I want to ask the Minister in terms of space, cost in the NWT. We already have a very high cost of living, and in a community such as Yellowknife, there are a lot of facilities out there, but there are also high costs associated with it. So when we have a doubling of incomes sometimes, in some cases one of those incomes goes to child care fees. I want to ask the Minister if there are any subsidies in place for the high cost of child care for some of these day programs, if there are any subsidies for the city of Yellowknife or any of the regional centres as well. Thank you.
Yes, there are various subsidy programs for early childhood development programming, whether it be an early childhood program for start-up and operation contribution funding through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, which also offsets the cost of operations and contributions towards items such as groceries, equipment, and material purchases. Also, in 2007, we established a rent and mortgage subsidy program that would offset the cost of basic rent and mortgage expenses. Those are just some of the subsidies that are being offered to the communities throughout the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for providing that information in terms of daycare facilities and anyone that’s wanting to start up a daycare facility.
The question I was kind of referring to in my last question was particular for families. Families that need those subsidies to make a comfortable living but also have a safe and healthy environment, and to be able to put their young children in these daycares. Is there a subsidy for families that will offer them an easier life and way of living with early childhood development programming?
When it comes to early childhood development, the program and community initiatives, there are all kinds of different initiatives and attached to that would be subsidies. I can provide the Members with the subsidies available to whether it be the young families or larger families, that they can access the various subsidy programs through our Department of Education, Culture and Employment and also with Health and Social Services. We can provide that detailed information on the actual subsidy program that may be available.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
