Mr. Speaker, Fort Smith has a long history of supporting correctional facilities located within their community. As a result, inmates in these facilities have had the benefit of community acceptance as they work through their rehabilitation process and make plans for release. For the adult female offenders housed in Fort Smith, this community support has been especially beneficial in their rehabilitation process.
The current building housing adult female offenders has been used as a correctional facility since 1991. Prior to this it was a youth group home, originally constructed in the late 1960s. It has clearly outlived its usefulness as a correctional facility. The 17th Legislative Assembly has approved the funding necessary to construct a new facility. This is a commitment to territorial adult female inmates and the people of Fort Smith.
In August we were pleased to be able to announce that the tender for the design and construction of the new facility has been awarded to C.A.B. Construction of Fort Smith with a successful proposal of just over $23.5 million. The new facility will have capacity for 23 women and will be located on MacDougal Road next to the existing facility for male inmates.
While the women’s building will be completely separate from the men’s unit, using this location will allow the Department of Justice to maximize efficiencies through shared food services, utilities, program and administrative supports. Additionally, the department will be able to retain and build on the skills of the experienced staff members currently employed at the facility. This is an approach that both
meets program requirements and lets us continue pursuing this Assembly’s goal of effective and efficient government.
This project is now in the design phase and we anticipate construction to begin in the spring of 2016. Best practices will be used in this facility supporting a residential style of housing for inmates as well as spirituality and special traditional programming areas. The building will meet all necessary and appropriate security requirements, from construction materials through to the outfitting of interior rooms. As well as meeting current needs, the design will allow for easy expansion of the building should we require more space in the future.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the community of Fort Smith for their continued support. It is important to have women serve their sentences close to their families and support networks, while remaining in the Northwest Territories. It is imperative to the success of the Northwest Territories and its people, socially, culturally, economically and spiritually, that healing of our northern women offenders takes place.
When the current territorial women’s facility was opened in Fort Smith, the main goal was to help female inmates address the needs that led to their incarceration in a supportive and culturally appropriate environment. This new facility will continue this legacy in keeping with the department’s goal to support the healing and rehabilitation of offenders. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.
Mr. Speaker, the number of new cancer cases in the Northwest Territories is expected to rise dramatically by 2030. According to Canadian Cancer Statistics 2015, a report released by the Canadian Cancer Society earlier this year, the number of new cancer cases in all of the territories will increase by approximately 60 percent within the next 15 years, largely due to an anticipated increase in the seniors population.
To guide our planning for this increase in cases, the Department of Health and Social Services has developed the NWT’s first 10-year Cancer Strategy, Charting Our Course: Northwest Territories Cancer Strategy 2015-2025, which I will be tabling later today.
Charting Our Course outlines the GNWT’s commitment to improving the cancer patient experience, including planning and coordination at all levels of prevention, care and support.
Our Cancer Strategy sets out five distinct areas of focus: cancer prevention; early detection and screening; continuity of care; communication and information flow; and the quality of life of cancer patients, their families and caregivers, and cancer survivors.
Cancer care and support services must address the diverse needs of people and our communities. Our Cancer Strategy is the result of research and consultation with many partners including Aboriginal governments, regional health and social services authorities, elders, and individuals and families whose lives have been affected by this disease. The strategy, which was directly informed by our conversations with these partners, reflects our most urgent priorities over the next 10 years.
The strategy combines clinical evidence with community knowledge, including lessons shared by cancer survivors, to lessen our cancer burden and reduce inequities in cancer care.
Charting Our Course promotes a circle of care model where the patient is at the centre, surrounded by a team of health professionals – physicians, nurses, social workers, counsellors, and dieticians – who work collaboratively toward the patient’s holistic health and wellness.
Mr. Speaker, opening a dialogue among all NWT residents, especially between patients and care providers, is at the very core of this strategy. We can learn from one another, ease fear, reduce stigma and ultimately support healing.
We all have a personal responsibility for maintaining our own health. I cannot emphasize enough the need for each of us and for every resident of the NWT to live a healthy lifestyle. By eating healthy food, getting regular exercise and by reducing alcohol consumption and not smoking, the chances are reduced that we will develop cancer and other chronic diseases as we and the population age.
Knowing your cancer risk and getting regular, early screening is also essential. This ensures that we are able to catch the disease early, should it appear, and have a better chance of treating it successfully.
Implementation of the strategy will have a lasting, better beneficial impact on our residents and will guide our efforts and interventions to ensure that we are providing best health, best care and a better future to cancer patients and their loved ones.
I would like to acknowledge our partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society, which is an important component of our work to reduce cancer in the NWT, and the input provided by the Canadian Partnership against Cancer, the Breast Health/Breast Cancer Action Group, the Stanton Elders Council, community leaders, and the many residents who gave us wisdom and insight into their healing journeys through sharing circles held across the NWT.
Our next step will be to develop a social marketing campaign built around this need for open dialogue and support. By encouraging learning and discussion about cancer prevention, early detection, and supporting one another in making healthy choices, we hope to contribute in a meaningful way to individual and community-level change for healthier living. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mr. Speaker, the North has a long history and a rich heritage with numerous languages and cultures. Our people work to preserve, revitalize and celebrate all aspects of their cultures and languages, which continually grow and evolve.
In 2014 the Department of Education, Culture and Employment began work on a government-wide 10-year Culture and Heritage Strategic Framework. This framework aligns the existing culture and heritage work of the government around a shared vision, goals and priorities. It is a cultural lens and guide for government initiatives until 2025.
We reviewed the work undertaken in other jurisdictions. We also reached out to residents to help develop the framework and received responses from people in 28 communities. We held 31 focus groups, meetings, home visits and workshops across the NWT. A wealth of information was provided by Aboriginal governments; arts, culture, and heritage organizations; cultural groups, including francophone groups, immigrants, foreign-born NWT residents and newcomers to Canada; elders; youth; communities of various sizes and GNWT advisory groups. I will be tabling the framework later today.
Mr. Speaker, languages are a vital part of this framework and are important to our people. For a year we were without the largest broadcaster of Aboriginal languages. CKLB, the broadcasting arm of the Native Communications Society, experienced some operational challenges resulting in discontinued live broadcasts. This government provided an additional $400,000 to CKLB, enabling them to resume the live broadcasting our community residents enjoy. CKLB is a critical part of preserving and promoting diverse language use across the NWT and we commend them for the excellent job they do.
The primary hub of our history and heritage is the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. The centre showcases NWT culture through beautiful and informative in-house exhibits. This past Saturday a new three-year collaborative exhibit This Land Is Our Home, Wıilıideh Yellowknives Dene, opened to great success. The centre also creates travelling exhibits and educational resources that circulate around the territory. It houses the NWT archives that care for our historical and government records, which are available to the public. The centre also conducts research to identify and preserve our archaeology and cultural places. We are continually striving to learn about, foster and protect our culture and heritage.
Mr. Speaker, earlier yesterday we celebrated the 5th Annual Minister’s Culture and Heritage Circle ceremony. This was created in 2011 to recognize those who have contributed to preserving and promoting the arts, cultures and heritage in our territory. Our recipients this year were the Yellowknife Ukrainian Association for the Group category; the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games NWT Youth Ambassadors for the Youth category; Berna Beaulieu of Behchoko in the Individual category and Jeanna Graham of the Hay River Reserve for the Elder category. The Minister’s Choice Award went to Vivian Edgi-Manuel of Fort Good Hope. Please join me in congratulating these tremendous role models for their work promoting the cultural diversity of the North.
Mr. Speaker, we are all stewards of our culture and heritage. We have the tools, information, technology and, most importantly, the will to ensure our diverse northern heritage is protected, taught and celebrated for generations to come. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Education is so important. We need to encourage students to graduate and go on to college and university. That is the message we give our Grade 12 graduates when we speak at their high school ceremonies.
It’s a huge transition for our young adults to make the big decision to leave home to further their education and to step up in life. They are continuing to grow and shape their future. We give them advice, we wish them well and we encourage them to do their very best, and at the same time, they are afraid. They are scared and feel alone.
One of my constituents went to Aurora College in Inuvik to attend the Access Program. It’s my understanding that the Access Program is to prepare students to enter the program of their choice, whether it be nursing, teaching or renewable resources. This student, a high school graduate and ready to venture out on his own, was told on the first day that he was not eligible for the Access Program. Staff told him to withdraw and to let the residence manager know that he will be leaving the residence.
This young adult made every attempt on his own to apply to college, apply to SFA and for any bursaries available to him, and he was successful. He was out on his own and was excited about a new career, a new opportunity, just to be told, basically, to go home.
Our college should have encouraged this student to stay and study. Our college should have given advice, encouragement and prepared him, or even given options of what can be done. Stay here and we will prepare you. Instead, we tell him to go home. This young man has no desire to go back to school after being told you’re not good enough. We need to open doors. We need you as a model. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I’ll have questions later today.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our days in this House are drawing to a close. I want to speak about something today that’s still very, very important in the Northwest Territories and that is the subject of addictions. I don’t think anybody who works for this government around this table could say that we have anything less than an epidemic proportion of problems with addictions, and we also know that it affects every aspect of life in the Northwest Territories, whether it’s justice, education, health, or just the well-being and safety of our communities.
So, as a government, we look for ways to address addictions, and I do commend the government for things like community counselling programs; the NWT Helpline; the Matrix program, which I just saw an ad in the Fort Smith newspaper for a Matrix program which outlined it all – it looks amazing – withdrawal management; on-the-land healing programs; and then also there are the residential treatment centres. We do not have a residential treatment centre in the Northwest Territories at this time, but we were told that with the money that was saved from the closure of Nats’ejee K’eh that clients who needed residential treatment could be referred to southern institutions and that this process would be streamlined, so we took that as something to be encouraged by, but still today we know that it is not easy for people to find treatment that want treatment.
In my constituency I was approached by a constituent, and I’ll make this story short, but this individual was going to the family counselling services and he hit rock bottom. He was faced imminently with the loss of his job – which was a very good job – with the loss of his family, with the loss of his home, and this person took matters into his own hands. They got out their credit card and they got themselves to treatment because they knew they were at that crossroads of absolute loss of everything they valued. So they got themselves to residential treatment in the South, on their credit card, and I want to say, happily, the treatment was fantastic, it helped so much. They returned to their community, to their job, to their family, to their life, and to this day remain sober, and this was many, many months ago that they did this. But the fact is that they had to do that on their own dime and that debt still remains now a cloud hanging over that family.
This is a compassionate government. I have gone to these Ministers before with one-offs and unusual circumstances and they have been compassionate.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
So, although we can say that we have a streamlined process, there are these one-offs and these unusual circumstances which do occur at times. For this particular case, I am asking this government, again appealing to these Ministers for discretionary latitude to help this family out now with this debt that remains for an initiative that they took to get the treatment that they needed and are now living a happy and healthy life. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen, Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As my colleagues know, two of my favourite words in this Legislature are Highway 7. I cannot let the 17th Assembly draw to a close without saying them for the 150th time. This time it’s a pleasure to say positive things about the work being done on the reconstruction of this highway, which is an important lifeline for the people of the communities I represent.
As I mentioned in March 2014, the renewed funding from the federal government under the new Build Canada Plan and the Department of Transportation’s Corridors for Canada III has allowed critical reconstruction work to continue. It was a beautiful summer in Nahendeh and nice, dry weather led to work great work on the highway. People were happy with the rehabilitation work done on Fort Liard Highway No. 7, which included grade repairs, surfacing, safety improvements, 20 of the 30 kilometres were chipsealed from the BC border to Fort Liard, and the dip at kilometre 169 was fixed and for the first time in years, the road ban was lifted in June.
I am pleased to see that reconstruction work is scheduled for the next four years in the Department of Transportation’s capital plan. I wanted to thank the Minister of Transportation and his department for the great work and look forward to reconstructing the rest in the years to come.
Premier McLeod and Minister Ramsay travelled with me on August 27th to Fort Liard. The conditions of the road were very good, but constituents were telling the Premier about it. In fact, he was chiding me and asking me what I was complaining about. All kidding aside, there’s much work yet to be done so that the travelling public and businesses can really enjoy the Deh Cho Trail, the road connection from the Alberta border all the way through to the BC border and then on to the Alaska Highway. Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today marks the final leg of my journey to a tabled document brought before the House on September 29, 2015, called Measuring GNWT Fiscal Performance and Accountability.
Public reporting, by all accounts, is the last measure of fiscal performance, because if you can’t show your work or report your work properly, then really who cares? So, reporting should be timely, clear and comprehensible to the average person. Although there has been some general improvement over the years, in 2015 the C.D. Howe Institute sums it up best in saying, “On the quality of reporting scale, the Northwest Territories earns a grade of D plus. Although the PSAB-consistent public accounts save the Northwest Territories from getting outright failing grades, its budgets would bewilder our idealized reader with multiple presentations of revenue and spending figures that no non-expert could possibly reconcile with the headline figures in their public accounts.”
To that end, I cannot argue with C.D. Howe Institute, and I also give the McLeod government an equal D plus grade when it comes to public reporting.
There you have it, Mr. Speaker. A complete six-day review of the McLeod government as it pertains to measurables of their fiscal performance and accountability. So, to recap the McLeod government report card: operational and capital growth spending, B minus; on taxation management, A; on population growth management, C; on debt and borrowing capacity, C; on workforce growth management, B minus; finally, on public reporting, D plus.
Again, I want to thank all resource staff for their report and fact-checking all my numbers. Bringing this much needed public information in an easier to understand document was a goal for me in my first year of office and I was glad I was able to fulfil that task.
It is my hope this formal evaluation format will be used by future Assemblies as a means to measure our fiscal performance and accountability for the people we serve. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If I Had a Million Dollars was a song sung by the Barenaked Ladies. However, I’m not going to say anything to that, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, if I had a million dollars I would pursue with the people of Colville Lake and this government to develop a strong partnership with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to begin planning to build a new school. …(inaudible)…,says the movie. If you build it, they will come.
This issue is so important that it was raised with the Premier and the Cabinet on September 24th in meetings with SSI and our government. The people came, they met, and now they wait to see if this partnership can become a reality.
Colville Lake is a traditional community, and as we know, both sizes of these traditional communities have very limited infrastructure, such as the basic essentials of a health centre without a full-time nurse, or having fly-in RCMP services, and they have one room with multi-grade classrooms together with only partitions separating them. There is no standard-size school gym. In this day and age, it’s unbelievable with all the money we spent on other infrastructures that we cannot get a school together for Colville Lake.
Over the years Colville Lake has made great strides to have their students begin and finish and to graduate at home. I have a note that says there were 10 students who dropped out of school this year because there’s no high school program in Colville Lake.
It’s been noted, for the record, that the people in Colville Lake built their own airport, a gold standard airport. In fact, the Premier’s Award of Excellence awarded this community and the people and this government. Partnerships work. It’s been proven and there’s solid evidence. This award was given because of the partnership between this government and the Colville Lake people.
To establish a partnership that works, partners needs to sit down together, and the Colville Lake people want this…
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
I urge this government to build upon the partnership that they have with Colville Lake and make this a reality. It’s been proven already. I urge this government to continue this initiative and pass it on to the next government. Colville Lake recognizes our goal set out in the 17th Legislative Assembly and we must walk our talk and commit ourselves to partnerships that will see a new school in Colville Lake
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today will be on business. As you all know, throughout this Assembly I’ve made a lot of statements on business and some of the issues that we’re having with our government and their lack of support and their difficulty supporting northern business.
Our Business Incentive Policy has got a bunch of flaws in it. Our Public Works and Services shared services has flaws in it. We continue to have issues with the government and the bureaucracy having the thought process of supporting northern businesses as opposed to finding a way to support southern businesses. I equate it to a map that we often see of NTCL where they are actually from the North Pole looking south. South should be down there. We shouldn’t be focused on how do we do business, and we should make sure that southern businesses can bid up here. We should be working on how we can get northern companies jobs and business in the Northwest Territories.
I’ve had numerous occasions where departments give the specs and certifications to a southern company saying we need a fire pit that’s powder coated. Nobody in the Northwest Territories powder coats. We got it from some other southern firm that gave us a quote. We’re buying mobile homes throughout the Northwest Territories. We don’t build mobile homes in the Northwest Territories. Why aren’t we doing that?
Again, we just put out four tenders for plow trucks. Again, Kingland Ford, second in bid, but the low bidder is going to build everything in Quebec and Ontario. Nothing is going to be done in the Northwest Territories. We’re selling to a northern company but all the work is being done in the South. We know that in a lot of Kingland’s, they’re putting 51 percent, over $100,000 worth of work, thousands of hours of work into these projects.
Our government has been partnering up. We looked at 802 airplanes instead of partnering with businesses that wanted to extend the life of some of the equipment we currently have. We have the electrical business where we didn’t even talk to the current electrical provider, NUL. Our Cabinet felt that they didn’t need to do that.
We’ve got to stop looking at the South and saying they’re the way to go. We need to support northern businesses in the North.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been talking about a territory-wide midwife program for a long time now. Originally we had programs in Fort Smith and Yellowknife, but the Yellowknife program was dropped with a plan to beef up the program in the Minister’s home community of Fort Smith.
The plan was to expand the Fort Smith program to Hay River, the Beau-Del, Behchoko and Yellowknife. A start was made and we have since seen progress in Hay River and Fort Smith. However, the Minister reports that the health authorities in the Beau-Del decided that instead of a midwifery program they would maintain general practitioners’ obstetrics skills complemented by community health workers and nurse practitioners.
This past July the Minister said that the next goal was to develop a territorial midwifery service based in Yellowknife and to expand the program into the regions, starting with the Deh Cho region and Behchoko. We have not heard about how and when the program will roll out here in Yellowknife.
A local mother-to-be recently asked if she could count on having her next baby with the assistance of a midwife in Yellowknife. She was told, “There is much work to be done, including seeking funding for this proposed program.” When did this become a proposed program and when did we lose the money for it? The Minister stated in July that he was still committed to move forward with a territorial model based out of Yellowknife in 2015-16 so that the full rollout could be done in 2016-17. Positions for midwives elsewhere have been funded for some time, though the positions have languished unfulfilled.
We have a midwife coordinator position. In fact we have two now, but it would seem that it would be a good thing to have some midwives to coordinate. There seems to be little commitment by the government to fulfill their promise of a timely territorial Midwifery Program serving all of the regions of the NWT.
With the sporadic and conflicting information out there, there is public concern and confusion about where we are headed with this program. The apparent lack of progress or even that we might be moving backwards with this program has people asking a lot of questions. I urge the Minister to set their minds at ease and reassure the mothers-to-be across the territory who want such services that they will be able to have their babies with the assistance of well-trained midwives who are supported by a comprehensive, stable, well-funded Midwifery Program in any of our regional centres across the NWT.
For the sake of our young families, I hope the Minister will confirm real progress and certainty on moving forward with territorial midwifery.
Mr. Bromley, your time for your Member’s statement has expired.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my Member’s statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
For the sake of our young families, I hope the Minister will confirm real progress and certainty on moving forward with territorial midwifery in Yellowknife soon. I will have questions. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to talk about the exciting partnership that is benefitting the people of the Deh Cho. Aboriginal language revitalization is an award-winning and accessible four-year certificate program taught out of the University of Victoria but based here in the NWT. It pairs fluent speakers with adult students interested in learning Dene Zhatie, also known as South Slavey. I wanted to take the opportunity to briefly say something in my language as well.
[English translation not provided.]
This program is innovative because, unlike a traditional classroom setting, students get the opportunity to speak their language frequently, and not just when they are in class. Students must put in 100 hours of conversation with their mentors over the duration of the program with no English allowed. The groundbreaking program was featured earlier this year on CBC, at which time 17 students were participating.
This language program is being hosted by the Deh Gah School in Fort Providence in collaboration with the University of Victoria. I think it is a great program to preserve an Aboriginal language. I want to congratulate this year’s graduates and encourage anyone who wishes to learn or improve their Dene Zhatie to consider this exciting program.
Student Dahti Tstetso says…[English translation not provided]…anything is possible, one day I will speak really good Dene. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The main cause of death, disease and disability in Canada and the Northwest Territories today are chronic diseases and injury. However, a large proportion of chronic diseases, disabilities and injuries can be prevented or their onset can be delayed.
Today I’d like to speak to one particular chronic disease that we have in the Northwest Territories and that’s diabetes. Anybody that knows anybody who has diabetes or has suffered from diabetes knows that it can lead to such things as kidney failure, blindness, lower limb amputations as well as risk of heart disease.
Currently, there are about 2,900 NWT residents in the Northwest Territories who are living with diabetes and every year it’s expected that 200 new diagnosis will happen. We do have a high prevalence, and with the increase in childhood obesity as well as obesity throughout our NWT residents, it only puts more people at risk. As well as the personal lifestyle choices that residents of the Northwest Territories have for themselves it also puts them at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The Canadian Diabetes Association recommends that diabetes care is patient-centred and is delivered by a multi-disciplinary team with specific training in diabetes, and focuses on such things as prevention, effective screening and management.
The Canadian Diabetes Association also recommends things such as a Pharmacare program so that people living with diabetes can access medications, devices and supplies they need to manage their disease. They also talked about possibly putting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax on such things as sports drinks, pop, diet pop, juices and, something that we see more prevalently, energy drinks. There is a clear connection between the high consumption of these drinks and the development of type 2 diabetes.
As I mentioned earlier, we do have a lot of NWT residents living with the disease. It’s very prevalent in the Northwest Territories.
I will be asking questions of our Minister of Health today how we’re treating the people with diabetes, but how we’re trying to prevent it and promote the education and awareness. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the past 35 years, the Yellowknife Day Care Association has been providing quality daycare services in a downtown GNWT-owned building, but now they’ve reached the absolute critical impasse and they need our help more than ever.
ECE has come to the strange decision that it is now time that the daycare has to go, and they’ve given them their notice. That’s right. Minister Jackson Lafferty is telling these kids it’s time to go. So, as each kid, as the daycare starts the day by turning on the lights and they get the important services of child care up and running for 55 kids, those kids will now have to find a new home.
The Yellowknife Day Care Association is a treasure to the downtown. They provide quality, reliable, affordable options for parents. But Minister Lafferty has determined as of July 31, 2016, that’ll be their last day. That’s right, Mr. Speaker. Next summer these kids will be kicked to the streets. Why? Well, I can only speculate as to why, but the truth is we haven’t really heard a solid or honest answer why they need to be rushed out the door. To be fair, the YK Day Care knows and certainly agrees that the building that they’re in is coming to the end of its useful life.
So while the smiles and laughter may be singing away in the air of the daycare each and every day, it’s true that building may be tired, but there are no, and I repeat there are no health and safety issues with that particular building, even the GNWT’s own studies say that that’s true. Yes, it has gone along and its useful life may be coming near the end, and the building may be older, true, but by seniors’ standards, it barely is a senior. It’s not that old. So why now? Why rush the daycare out the door before it’s ready to take the plunge in the open market and buy their own building?
They have been saving money for years, but they don’t quite have enough yet to do it on their own. So, if Minister Lafferty would support this daycare so they could get set up right, they would be in a position to succeed, but not just that, they could also expand a desperately needed area such as a daycare our community needs.
Let me remind Minister Lafferty that this daycare offers 55 child care spaces each and every day. The Minister personally knows about children and how important they are. He’s got a lot of kids, for goodness sakes. He should know. All I can tell you is that we have 12 out of the 24 licenced spaces allotted for children between the ages of one and…
I’m sorry, Mr. Hawkins, your time for Member’s statement has expired.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was just trying and squeeze in the last couple of words before I asked. I seek unanimous consent to conclude my Member’s statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
What I was trying to say is this daycare has 12 out of the 24 licenced allotted spaces for children in Yellowknife between the ages of one and two years old. Those are precious spaces because they’re critical so parents can go back to work, otherwise what would they do? So I’m asking the Minister to stop and think about what they’re doing before they kick the kids to the street.
There are solutions. This government has given money to other daycares. A couple years ago, our government gave $1 million to one that needed it desperately. So the fact is there are solutions out there and we have to stop trying to make them all fit the same mold.
In closing, the solution would be less than half a kilometre of highway, and I choose the kids over the highway. The last thing I’ll say is the Minister knows how much he loves his picture in the paper with kids each and every time. Perhaps we should get a picture of the kids from this daycare on the street with their lunch bags and their little suitcases with nowhere to go and we can shame this Minister into doing something. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
