Debates of October 30, 2024 (day 35)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions is for the Education, Culture and Employment Minister.

This new deal with the federal government to expand school lunch program is an excellent opportunity to improve both nutrition and academic performance of children across the North. But I hope that this program will have a strong focus on Indigenous children.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister will the expansion of this program prioritize cultural relevance for Indigenous students? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, also a huge thank you to the Member. His Member's statement absolutely hit on all of the points of what this relationship between the GNWT and the Government of Canada is trying to achieve, and it's so much more than food. And so the answer absolutely is yes. The program is based on the existing -- or the funding, sorry, is going to be funding through the existing Healthy Food for Learning Program that is maintained by Education, Culture and Employment, and those dollars flow out to education bodies. Education bodies will have the opportunity to work through community partnerships, to work with local harvesters and subsistence hunters, to prepare traditional foods in schools. Really, this work is going to be on a case-by-case basis depending on how each education body chooses to use some of it. And so some of the examples, Mr. Speaker, of how they're able to use some of this food is absolutely increasing quantities of food, hiring personnel to support the organization and food program delivery needs, providing food safety training, and also the ability to do capital or infrastructure investments or improvements. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. She answered all my questions. But anyway, I'd like to just look at how would this agreement work or take into consideration the unique northern circumstances in small communities; like, higher costs of groceries, traditional harvest, and then shorter growing season? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm very thankful that this program is willing to be flexible in how we administer it within the Northwest Territories within the criteria that I outlined for the Member. But that being said, the current formula funding for the Healthy Food Learning is going to be used, and that formula allows us to distribute based on student populations, also based on food cost indexes for the region the school is located in, and also the median incomes of communities. And so it will be flexible and responsive to where the students live and also the flexibility of the programming allows for things like capital investments and infrastructure improvements as determined by the education bodies, which is really important that we're able to actually work with education bodies and work with communities themselves in order to really get to where the students need these dollars so that it does have a positive impact in the classroom. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Minister. Right now the GNWT funds $650,000 for NWT school food program. How much more funding can the NWT expect each year under the new agreement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Canada-wide, the Government of Canada is putting 1 billion more dollars over the course of five years into classrooms across the country. I am really looking forward to being able to work with the Government of Canada to announce what that will mean specifically for the Northwest Territories, and I'm looking forward to being able to do that in the next few weeks. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Minister. Will there be any targets for this -- with the program and information made available as the program rolls out to measure its effectiveness? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as it stands with the existing program, education bodies already formally report on types of food and program -- that their program offers and the average number of children and youth served, and those are all available online through annual reports that are already published.

In addition to that, ECE is going to be engaging with education bodies to set more formal targets specific to this new funding. So that could be tracking the expansion and enhancements of existing programs and infrastructure improvements to really show what kind of impact these dollars are having to our classrooms to learning and ultimately to food insecurity of children in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Colleagues, we've almost spent 25 minutes and four sets of questions. So, please, make your answers more succinct. Thank you.

Oral questions. Member from the Deh Cho.