Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last year when MLAs were complaining that there were no targets attached to our mandate, we were told it's all going to be in the business plans. But a year later, in many cases I don't see this happening. When I look at our updated business plans, in many cases I'm not sure I see a clear plan articulated for much of what we're trying to do.
Because it came up during your review of the ECE budget last night in COW, I'm going to focus on targets related to growing the workforce today. But I want to be clear that there are a number of areas where we need to better articulate what we are trying to achieve and would suggest that, at a minimum, we need to set clear targets for each of our priority items.
Mr. Speaker, we are capable of setting targets. Keeping the focus on ECE, part of our ELCC agreement included setting targets for growth of childcare spaces as the member for Boot Lake was talking about today. The target lists out both what we are ultimately trying to achieve and interim goals to keep us on track along the way. 75 spaces per year for a total of 300 spaces by March 31st, 2026. That is a solid goal. It's very specific, so we know exactly what we are working towards.
The reason targets like this are useful is because they tell us and the public what we are trying to achieve and, in some cases, even what problem we are trying to solve. Imagine we set a more nebulous target like we've done for growing post-secondary students for childcare spaces? Imagine if our goal was simply increase childcare spaces. How would staff ever know what they achieved or even when they were done? With a goal like that, you will never know when the work is finished or if you're making meaningful progress towards the goal because there isn't one.
I want to acknowledge that a number of the targets ECE has set for growing the northern workforce are measurable and applaud the department's work to establish these targets. For example, they have set the goal of increasing the number of students accessing SFA by 10 percent over the length of the 20th Assembly. That is a measurable target that we can track the progress of. I would suggest that we bring the rest of our targets up to this standard and; furthermore, ensure that we aren't simply taking a shotgun approach to mandate implementation by throwing a bunch of ideas at it. Let's get clear about what problems we are trying to solve, make plans to address those problems, and set measurable and achievable goals to implement those plans. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Members' statements. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
