Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A key priority of my mandate has been promotion of early childhood development because of its critical role in growing our next healthy generation. Key connections exist with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative. As I noted last session, with the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative moving to completion before the early childhood development review is done, there is potential for a fundamental error in planning. We can’t set an informed course for student achievement until we’ve considered development of young children before they enter the school system.
What is early childhood development? Providing the nurturing, securing and stimulating experiences during the first years of a child’s life that help the child’s brain develop and lay the foundation for lifelong learning. In essence, the experiences that children have before they can even speak affect lifelong learning and behaviour.
Consider this astounding and emerging new knowledge: Studies show that our brain development peaks in the first year of life. Language development peaks between six and nine months and begins with development of brain circuitry in the three months before birth.
The greatest opportunity to foster Aboriginal languages starts before birth and goes to age one. Powers of perception and thinking, physical, emotional and mental health, above all, learning, all these capacities are most powerfully and largely developed from prenatal to the third year of life. If we focus on efforts on institutional learning without the early childhood support, we’ve missed the period of life when efforts -- that’s expenditures -- bring the greatest results.
What about the costs? Talk about good investment. In Canada the annual cost of dealing with crime, violence, and problems in mental health and addictions is about $220 billion. That’s direct cost and lost economic potential. The cost of preventing this? About $18 billion. In terms of return on expenditures, support for programs aimed at the first three years of life gives them eight times greater return and increased capacity compared to dollars spent at age 16. Focus on prevention, save on cost.
The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is going ahead, with much good work done. In handing this over to the next Assembly, I’m asking the Minister to ensure that resources are earmarked to efficiently achieve the huge potential we now...
Mr. Bromley, your time for your Member’s statement is expired.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
The Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative is going ahead, with much good work done. In handing this work over to the next Assembly, I’m asking the Minister to ensure that resources are earmarked to efficiently achieve the huge potential we now realize we can achieve through early childhood development with much less cost than the greater and too-late cost during schooling. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
