Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to thank the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment for reaching their discussion paper on early childcare and the great work they've been doing to date. I'm happy to see the funding for increasing education in that. But I think the big announcement is what's the ambitious words coming out of the federal government, where they've been committed to having the cost of childcare. I know there's $30 billion federally over the next five years.
What I'm looking for from the Minister is do we have a sense of how much that money we will see in our bilateral agreement and whether it will be enough to actually get us universal childcare in the territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Education, Culture, and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The bilateral agreement is still being negotiated. So I can't give the Member a number on that. However, the federal government, in addition to that 30 billion they announced from 450 million in workforce development, and we expect maybe 2 and a half million from that, and hopefully in addition to what we're getting at the bilateral. So we have been receiving about 2.4 million a year. And so in worst case scenario, we would get that in the first year of that agreement.
But the federal government has made an announcement. I'm not confident that they have ironed out all the details at this point. And I frankly, I doubt it, given that childcare isn't something the federal government does. It's the provinces and territories. And so their plan is dependent on our plans. And that's why we are positioned well, considering that we're developing our 2030 Early Learning and Childcare Strategy right at the same time they are developing their national childcare strategy. So the plan will be, you know, developed in conjunction with the federal plan, and we will keep the Members updated as soon as we learn any of the news. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate we're negotiating the plan. And I guess I've got to try and squeeze a few more details out of the Minister if I can. And hearing from what the other provinces and territories have said across Canada, there's a big debate about cost sharing and I think fears from a number of provinces that Ottawa will fund us for five years, and then the provinces are going to be left with, you know, a giant childcare bill at the end of that agreement.
And I know a number of provinces have are quite opposed to this idea of Ottawa kind of imposing childcare. So I was hoping the Minister could speak to our views on any cost sharing requirement on childcare, if the federal government is going to require us to put up 50 percent of the dollars in this bilateral, are we willing to do that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The question is is Ottawa willing to put up 50 percent of the dollars. We already put in a substantial amount of money many times more than Ottawa puts into childcare. So if Ottawa was to match what we're already spending, we would be almost where we need to be. There would probably be additional funding required, but that 50 percent from Ottawa would be great.
So, you know, of course, appropriations are voted on by this House. So I can't commit to any future funding. But I think it's fair to say there is a commitment to ensuring that we are partners with Ottawa as we work towards rolling out universal childcare in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the discussion paper, the department points out a number of barriers. You know, I think a lot of them are monetary. Costs is simply subsidization. The infrastructure is the funding of money to build the infrastructure. But the report says we need between 221 to 299 trained educators in childcare. And then to me, this seems the biggest barrier we're facing is that I know many operators today can't hire qualified staff. I'm hoping to get a sense from the department how realistic, you know, even in the next five years or in this 2030 strategy getting that hundred percent increase in educators actually is. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have an over/under on, you know, how realistic that is. But the fact is that we recognize that we need qualified early learning childcare educators, not just people to, you know, watch the kids while they watch TV. We need educators if we really want to give children the best start in life. So there's a number of initiatives taking place. There are early learning and childcare scholarships for people who want to learn. There's a pilot program right now in person. You can do the first year of the diploma online. We're hoping to expand the number of dual credit courses so that the students in high school can graduate high school with credits towards their early learning and childcare diploma. So in addition, this is all before the additional workforce funding from the federal government. So there's a lot of big things that we can do and really are pushing to do. And it goes hand in hand with the transformation of Aurora College into a polytechnic university. So this is on the forefront of everyone's minds. In addition, I'll point out that it's not just hard to hire qualified staff. It's hard to keep qualified staff because, of course, these aren't government jobs; these are communityled jobs; they're nonprofits. And if you have the right qualifications, you can also teach junior kindergarten, which is a much more lucrative position than being an early childhood educator. So finding the funding to ensure that those educators stay in those positions is also part of the bigger picture that we're working on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister led into my last question, which is that a number of models exist for universal childcare. The cheapest model being essentially the day home model. But we ran into issues with that. In that, in some communities, it's just not ever going to be profitable to run a day home. And in some communities, you can't find a nonprofit willing to step up and run those programs. On the higher end of that spectrum is making those jobs government jobs where the GNWT would actually hire early childhood educators.
Do we have an idea what kind of model of universal childcare we're working towards and would it include those jobs being government jobs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There have been a number of engagements happening. There's a number still scheduled to happen. And through those engagements, we are hearing what the communities, what the childcare providers, what Indigenous governments want as a model. And we're hearing all of those options that the Member just identified. There's some communities, as he points out, where it's difficult to find a group or nonprofit to provide childcare. And in some communities, there's not enough children. Some communities, there's not a desire. So we'll never get to I don't think we'll likely ever get to a hundred percent of communities having childcare all the time. But I'm open to all of those options. Whatever fits a particular community, I think is what we need to look at. So we're still early in this engagement, and I look forward to being able to, you know, present to the committee and have some good discussions about what this could look like based on all of the feedback we're getting. And I have to say I appreciate the effort that the early childhood educators have put into providing this feedback. They have been a part of a lot of different symposiums, a lot of engagements. And, as well, Indigenous governments have been engaging with ECE on a number of different issues. So I want to thank them all for their participation as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake, round 2.
