Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to keep the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment going up and down for another few minutes yet. I would like to return to the issue that I discussed with the Minister yesterday and that’s the impact of junior kindergarten on the Aboriginal Head Start program.
Yesterday I mentioned it was a federally funded program fully funded by the federal government. The Minister, in answering my colleague’s question, I didn’t really get a sense that he understands. He referenced a number of communities that don’t have daycare; he referenced the need to put junior kindergarten into 29 communities, and I do not disagree. Junior kindergarten is a good program and, yes, we should be implementing it. However, we have Aboriginal Head Start in eight communities and I think we could already say we have junior kindergarten in those eight communities. Aboriginal Head Start services three and four-year-olds. Junior kindergarten is four-year-olds.
First, I’d like to ask the Minister why Education, Culture and Employment does not openly endorse the Aboriginal Head Start preschool programs in the eight communities in the NWT where it is operational. Why does the Minister not endorse these programs and use them as junior kindergarten? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mr. Speaker, I’ve already answered that question for Mr. Bromley. This is federal programming, the eight communities the Member is referring to. We’re working with them. Junior kindergarten is a prime example as part of enhancing the program. Again, it’s optional. We’re not forcing parents to send their kids to junior kindergarten; it is optional for parents. At this point, I’ll have to take that question as notice. Mahsi
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
