Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories understands the importance of early childhood development and has been focused on developing and implementing programs and services for families with young children for the past few years. Healthy development during the first few years of life is crucial for lifelong success. I would like to share today some of the positive funding changes we are making in early childhood development. In 2014-2015, as a commitment of the Right from the Start Action Plan, the department of Education, Culture and Employment conducted a review of the Early Childhood Program. This included engagements with various groups in the early childhood sector to assess what was working and what needed improvement in our approach to supporting licensed daycares and day homes. The changes to early childhood program funding announced in the recent budget will focus on three areas: the operating subsidies, the Early Childhood Intervention Program, and supporting new early childhood licensed operators. Under operating subsidies, we are revising the operating subsidy model to licensed daycare and day home operators to replicate increasing costs to operate these facilities and to ensure the sustainability of the programs. Licensed family day homes and daycare centre facilities will both receive an increase in their operating subsidies. The increase will be dependent on which community they operate in. As an example, the daily subsidy rate for a daycare in Fort McPherson will see a subsidy increase of 145 per cent for infant spaces and 46 per cent for pre-school spaces. The larger increase in the subsidy for infant spaces reflects the need for increased staff for infants and acknowledges this is an area of demand. We are also changing our approach to operators in government-owned buildings who will now receive 75 per cent of the daily rate, which is an increase from 50 per cent of the daily rate that was previously provided. We are significantly cutting the red tape and streamlining the application process for early childhood subsidies. Now one application form and contribution agreement will replace three previous contribution agreements, and an approach to multi-year agreements is being developed.
Mr. Speaker, the Early Childhood Intervention Program will be refocused on children with identified special needs. One of the items we heard consistently during the review was that the previous program which was to provide additional support to children with special needs was often used to offset general operating expenses. The new approach will include steps to ensure this funding is used to support children with special needs that attend early childhood programs. Finally, we are changing our approach to supporting new daycare operators where a start-up subsidy to offset mortgage or rent costs can be obtained for a fixed period of time, or it can be provided as a forgivable loan. There will also be enhanced support for equipment for new operators. These changes represent numerous meetings, discussions, and feedback from stakeholders across the North. They are necessary to ensure our licensed operators can focus on the needs of children under their care across the territory. With this government's focus on supporting quality early childhood development, we believe this brings us one step closer to making good choices right from the start for northern families. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
