EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I’m not the minister responsible for the devolution file. As I have said earlier, the Department of Education and NAC are part of the working group.
Sorry, I was just checking the time here and your time is up.
Mr. Curley: I’m not on yet.
Chairman: G-8.
Total Operations and Maintenance, to be Voted. $25,297,000.
To page G-10.
I had one question on that. I looked for the program on your business plan with respect to the Mental Health Workers Training Program that was contained, I believe, in the Health Department’s budget. The Minister responsible for the Arctic College did indicate that that program was a two-year program.
Could the minister update the members of the committee here on the status of that? Will it be ongoing or is it one-time only?
That program is a program run under a contribution agreement with the department, so it’s not a base funded program.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say to the House, to the committee that this is a very critical program.
If you look at the whole nature of Nunavut with respect to mental health, we really don’t have any strategies or anything to that effect and many of our mentally ill individuals who are at home really don’t have any support either.
We don’t have institutions that care for them and we don’t really have any actual programs to support them, so the elders tend to acquire all of that responsibility by themselves. In many occasions, unless the individual has a very severely and critical condition, then normally, they are sent out and yet, that is not the best route to take.
So I would ask the minister seriously to continue to review this program because it certainly would ensure that our Nunavummiut are somewhat respected, particularly those individuals with mental health conditions throughout Nunavut.
I agree with the member; I believe this is a much needed program throughout Nunavut and we will do what we can for that to continue.
We want to finish the program first and then do an evaluation to see how it worked, what kind of shortcomings there were and what have you, and then, with our sister department, see what’s revealed. So we’re in agreement with the comments of the member.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. I think it would important that this not be a one-time contribution agreement as he stated. It should be somehow instituted further because of the very clear fact that this area is not only underfunded but there’s very little support provided by the government towards that.
My further question to that is: I understand that this program may be accredited for Nunavut but not comparable with southern institutions, so I wonder why the minister chose not to make it an accredited program throughout Canada.
Lots of different programs are run within the college and sometimes you have programs where you might have affiliation with a college or so on.
I’m not sure; right now, I don’t have the information with us of who that program is affiliated with for credential status, so we’ll have to get that information for the member and we can do that.
Mr. Curley: I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.
I think the minister should look at the fact that it’s not only to me and satisfying my request, but that standard should respect the fact that the student is taking the two-year program, that they should be recognized and it should be accredited, and if not, then the question is: why not?
I am glad the minister will provide all the reasoning that I have and make it available to the members of this committee.
Hon. Ed. Picco: Yes, we can do that, Mr. Chairman.
G-10.
On this page, there’s $3,377,000 in grants and contributions, and I know in the back, on G-13, there’s a list of grants and contributions, but could the minister indicate which ones are included in that amount from their list?
Just looking at the list right now, it’s quite an extensive list and the amounts that are there are out of the $3 million.
So if the member would just bear with us, we would be able to go through the list.
I’m just looking at the numbers and again, the Literacy program is $175,000, Early Childhood programs - Day care contributions is $1,595,000, Early Childhood programs - Healthy Children Initiative is $885,000, and I believe the $882,000 is the Community Capacity Building that would be included in those amounts.
I’m just wondering if the Young Parents Stay Learning funding is included in the grants and contributions there.
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, that money is not included.
At this time, I would like to ask Ms. Sandy Teiman to join us at the table as we’re finished with the Nunavut Arctic College issues.
Chairman: Does this committee agree that the minister bring in one of his witnesses?
Minister, would you please introduce your witness.
I am very pleased to introduce Ms. Sandy Teiman. Sandy is the Director of Income Support with the Department of Education.
Welcome back, Ms. Teiman.
Minister, would you please answer Mr. Tootoo’s question. Minister Picco.
We’re just working on trying to get the answer. I know Irene, Peter, and Murray, and some of our other staff members are probably following this. I’m wondering if Mr. Tootoo would just repeat that question so I can clarify the answer for him.
Very simply, Mr. Chairman, my question was: if the Young Parents Stay Learning funding was included anywhere in those grants and contributions amounts?
That program is found under Fees and Payments.
Is it on the same page? Can the minister clarify that?
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to ask Ms. Teiman to answer that question.
The Young Parents Stay Learning funding is contained under the lump sum of the Fees and Payments budget, which is in the social assistance realm, in the training on-the-job funding; it’s an all inclusive amount.
Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Teiman.
I thank Ms. Teiman for clarifying that.
Can the minister or his officials indicate if it has been a successful program? Is there a lot of uptake on it? Can you give us a little bit of a background on that program?
We’re quite excited about this program. The uptake hasn’t been as high as we had originally thought and this House gives us an opportunity to be able to advertise the program a little bit more.
The program is in place for young parents who have a child and want to continue to stay in school, and have identified day care or child care for the child.
We help pick up that cost if they’re income support eligible.
Mr. Tootoo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the minister indicated that he’s quite excited about this program, and I just note from last year that the funding has been cut in half, and he had indicated that the uptake hasn’t been as high as they had hoped, has it been half of what they had hoped and planned for?
Is that why they cut the budget for that in half?
I think it is a good program because it helps students stay in school and it gives them the opportunity to find quality child care for their child.
Maybe we haven’t advertised it as much and it’s probably one of the reasons the uptake hasn’t been there as well. Again, this is a good opportunity in the House today to be able to bring that forward. That’s something that we want to work on with that program in the new fiscal year because we believe it will benefit quite a few students.
I think a lot of our students maybe are not aware of it.
The other concern is, in some cases, we have heard that they haven’t been able to find child care, or they preferred to stay home and take care of their child during the first couple of years and have been using family members, and so on, so they wouldn’t have gone to a child care service, or for example, a day care.
Can the minister indicate how many young parents have been taking part in this program in the last year?
I don’t see that amount there but I think there are three parents that have had an uptake on that program.
I know the Minister of Education knows that one of the reasons students drop out of school is that they get pregnant and leave, and then come back. As the minister said that only three people have participated in that program in the last year, what are they doing to get that message out there?
Is it that they don’t want to, or there’s no licensed child care facilities to accommodate those students’ children?
Is that one of the reasons why people aren’t participating in the program?
Under the Income Support Program, and I want to make sure that I’m clear on the message here, when a person turns 18 and they become income support eligible, then they would more than likely have gone onto our Day Care User Subsidy Program that we have in place and we have right now, I believe, over 100 people on that program specifically.
If they’re under the age of 18 and not income support eligible, and don’t have the luxury or any other way of paying those child care fees, and so on, then they would be eligible for the program. And those are the three that we have talked about. I think we need to do a better job as a department and me as minister in making this program a little bit more widely known, and I think that’s the reason the uptake hasn’t been probably as great.
What we’re saying is that any parent under the age of 18, who has a newborn and needs help with day care, 100 percent of the eligible fees are available under this program and we administer the program through our three regional offices.
My question was: is he aware of the reason that some of the parents are not participating in the program because there simply aren’t any licensed child care spaces available for kids to go to and that’s why parents are finding alternative options, either staying at home or having their family look after their child, that aren’t licensed child care facilities?
I think the waiting list on most of them around here is probably two years for licensed child care facilities.
Is that there’s just simply no licensed child care facilities for these kids to go to?
Hon. Ed. Picco: I think the member is correct; I think available licensed space is an issue.
The second part, to be qualified for the program, the student has to be in school, too and that also has to be factored in.
There are a lot of issues with the liability issues of unlicensed day cares, as we know, and that’s why the Department of Education said in 2004, as part of the fundamental shift that we talked about in education, is that for every new education building that we build, whether it’s a student residence, every new major school renovation that we do or any new school construction will all contain a day care space in them to help provide and alleviate some of those issues that we just talked about.
Given the simple fact that there are nowhere near enough licensed facilities; and I understand the minister’s concern in regard to liability in cases where a young student may want to allow a family member, or a parent, or someone in their family to look after their child while they attend school, right now, under this program, because it’s not a licensed thing, they wouldn’t be eligible for any help or assistance under this program; so I’m just wondering if the minister would look at expanding it to not just licensed child care facilities.
It’s great to say that and we’re doing it, but if there’s no space out there, what’s the use of saying it if we know that they’re not going to be able to get anyone into it?
I know there are some liability issues as we have spoken about, but I will direct the staff to look at some opportunities under this program area to see where we can make some accommodations.
Again, the bottom line is and what we’re trying to say is we know that one of the reasons for the high drop out rate that we see in our schools is that a lot of parents have to drop out of school because they’ve had a baby and they don’t have proper child care.
We want to make the program more accessible but be cognizant of some of the liability issues.
I know that the Income Support Program is under here as well, but just under Income Support while Ms. Teiman is here, are clients eligible for support for child care and are the license requirements there as well?
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you. The member is correct. Under the Day Care User Policy, under Income Support, that facility can be licensed or unlicensed and there have been over 100 clients on that program right now.
I don’t know if the minister could explain why, under the Income Support Program, they give funding for both. If it’s a non-licensed place, then the liability issue is not an issue, but under this other program it does seem to be an issue, if he can clarify that.
The Day Care User Subsidy Program under Income Support is a regulated program, whereas the Young Parents Stay in School program/initiative is not, so you have to the follow the regulations. That’s the difference in it.
I would have thought if it’s regulated, then that’s where the liability issues might come in, but the minister said that the Young Parents Stay Learning program isn’t regulated. So if he can clarify: why is it that there is a liability issue with the non-licensed facilities under the Young Parents Stay Learning program but not in the other one?
Hon. Ed. Picco: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.
Under legislation, there are regulations in place and that’s why I suggested that the Day Care User Subsidy is under regulations, meaning it’s under the Act and there are regulations in place.
The Young Parents Stay in School Initiative is a program we actually started ourselves; we just came up with that. So it’s outside of the legislative programs and it’s a program that we started here in Nunavut, and that’s the difference in the process.
I still don’t understand. I understand how when it’s created under regulation and under legislation, and the other one, it must be just a policy of the government. I still don’t understand why there would be a liability issue or concern that would not allow anyone under the Young Parents Stay Learning program to utilize a non-licensed facility where, under Income Support, they can use a non-licensed facility.
There are a couple of issues around this and one being under the Young Parents Stay in School initiative if they’re under 18, so they’re not income support eligible. As we said earlier, under the Day Care User Subsidy, is you are over the age of 18, you are income support eligible, and it’s a program that came in through the Act.
What I can say, and I just said it earlier to the members and to the House, is that we will review the program and see where we can move within the program itself and make it more user-friendly for our students and for our parents, and then report back to the House and see if we can make those changes.
Judging from the minister’s response, that’s the way it was put into the policy and there’s really no reason why, and he keeps saying that one was under Income Support, but whether you’re over 18 or not has nothing to do with licensed or non-licensed child care facilities.
So I would like the minister, if he can’t come up with an adequate response right now, to commit to providing it to us.
Hon. Ed. Picco: I think, Mr. Chairman, there are some issues around the age of consent.
If a student is 15 years old and they decide, “Okay, you’re going to subsidize me. You’re going to give me money so my child can be taken care of by the Tootoo family across the street. I’ll just bring my kid and drop him off and I want to pay them $200.”
We’re going to pay the Tootoo family but we don’t know what kind of care the Tootoo is going to give, and so on and so forth. That’s some of the issues that we’re talking about.
As a government, we’re trying to move away from a non-licensed day care; we want to foster, support, and develop more licensed day cares across the territory. When you run a licensed day care, you have liability issues, O&M costs, and so on.
If we somehow start supporting more Tootoo families to be able to take over day care, does that mean then that you’re taking out that supply from other communities?
So it might not be an issue in Iqaluit but it might be an issue in the smaller communities. There are different issues and processes that are at work here and not just one. So what I will do is commit to the members and to the House to review the eligibility for the program - licensed and non-licensed - to see if we can.
As I said earlier, at the end of the day, we want to have probably more uptake on the program and support those young children, and I say young children who are 14, 15, 16 that are having babies and aren’t able to continue their studies in school. That’s why the program was put in place - so we could provide that licensed day care.
Maybe a suggestion for the minister to ask him if they would consider… like you said, it may not be an issue in some communities but we all know, here in town, there is a two-year waiting list to get into a licensed facility. I don’t know about the other communities, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of new licensed child care facilities opening up lately.
There is a big demand but there never seems to be any funding for those facilities to open up and the biggest cost is the capital of getting those facilities.  Would the minister, in his review, consider looking at putting something in there that says, “Where there are readily available licensed spaces in the community, they would have to use those,” but in the case like here, where you have a two-year waiting list, that they would look at non-licensed facilities because, by the time two-year wait is up, that child might not want to go back to school.
So would the minister commit to looking at including something like that in the eligibility for the program?
There’s no disagreement or argument from me. Everywhere in Nunavut, we could use more, I think it’s safe to say, more child care spaces.
That’s part of the initiative we talked about earlier when we’re building new schools and doing major renovations, we will add them on. An example is in Iqaluit, where the new Nunavut Arctic College residence that is planned, we will have a day care, as well as the major renovations to Inuksuk; we would have that built-in to that program, too, because it’s a major renovation.
We built our new Nunavut Arctic College residence in Rankin Inlet and we put a day care in there. So we are trying to approach it that way.
Maybe there’s some opportunity also to license family day care homes; have them inspected and licensed, if families would like to do that, and then that would be a licensed place.
So I am prepared to look at the suggestions of the House and of the members.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. (interpretation) I wanted to add a bit to that question. (interpretation ends) Mr. Chairman, (interpretation) last summer and winter, they have been making proposals because that one day care in Rankin Inlet is insufficient now.
I would like to get an update of what the status of the funding request is. I know that you have the application.
Could the minister update us on whether or not that application is going to be supported?
I don’t have the status of the funding application that the member speaks about. I have just directed Kathy to follow-up with our Director for Early Learning and Child Care Services for that information.
Mr. Curley: Mr. Chairman, (interpretation) if you can let me know how the applicants are going to be informed, would you provide me a copy of whether they have been approved or not?
It’s clear you have had that information for some time now.
Sometimes the staff run into a brick wall because that one day care is in chronic shortage. Could you provide me with the information?
Hon. Ed. Picco: Yes, we’ll make that commitment.
We’ll provide that information to the member and I should have it probably early Monday or Tuesday.
Mr. Curley: Thank you. (interpretation) Moving on to Fees and Payments, I think that’s a part of fees and payments for income support that we talked about a couple of pages ago. The Income Support line item was larger last year and there’s been a reduction of $30.9 million. Can the minister elaborate further on that?
I was just reviewing the numbers there. The decreases that the member talks about are administrative decreases within the department itself with some of the staffing at HQ associated with the fee payment structure that the member mentioned.
Career and Early Childhood Services. Mr. Tootoo.
I’ll just go back to the question my colleague was asking about earlier after. Mr. Chairman, I assume the minister earlier indicated that the day care contributions are included in there. Can the minister indicate if this is money that is given to day cares for their O&M costs to help keep them afloat?
As the minister knows well, being the Minister responsible for Energy, that fuel and everything else like that has gone up over the last few years.
Since there has been no increase in that amount, I’m just wondering if he can explain why there’s been no increase there when all the operating costs for the day cares, I would imagine, have increased as well.
Hon. Ed. Picco: Thank you. We did two large instalment payments to all of our day cares last year and earlier this year, I believe in this fiscal year, as a result of the ELCC Agreement that was brought forward in the federal government. That was unconditional funding and the day cares used that money whichever way they saw fit, which included putting credits on oil bills and so on.
I haven’t received any questions from a day care with concerns with the amount of the O&M funding.
The biggest problem we have with day cares is the funding is based on enrolment. So, for example, your ongoing cost to run a day care might be $3,000 a month, but sometimes when you have a lot of children sick, and so on and so forth, or people who withdraw out of the program, they only may be running at 40 percent occupancy. You lose that extra revenue because of that.
So we’re looking at ways we can help day cares make up that amount.
If I understood the minister correctly there, it’s almost like the way that we’re treated by the federal government is per capita funding for the day cares just based on their occupancy rates as they go along.
As the minister indicated, there are sometimes reasons why kids aren’t there and then they don’t get paid for them if they’re sick or something like that, but they don’t want to give up their space, so it’s still held for them. He has also indicated over the years that the per capita funding doesn’t work up here.
Basically, he indicated they’re looking at some ways to try and address that problem. I wonder if he can give us some indication of exactly what they’re looking at.
I know that every time you turn around, the day cares are run by volunteer boards and they’re continually trying to fund-raise just to keep their doors open.
I’m just wondering if the minister or his officials can commit to taking a look at that or give us an idea of what they’re looking at to try and help alleviate the operating deficits that most of the day cares are faced with in Nunavut right now.
Unlike the federal government, when we look at our day cares, as an example, we actually base fund them and on top of that, based on the size of the facility, because every facility is different and every facility would have different numbers of students available, then we base that number on the base and then on the attendance formula that we talked about.
So we agree with the member and we’re looking at how we can improve the funding arrangements for our day care facilities.
Can he give an indication of exactly what they’re looking at doing and changing there to try and help them out?
I’ve had discussions with the deputy minister to look at all aspects of day cares, whether that’s wages, salaries, some of the O&M costs, and so on. We have done some small improvements, but it’s something again that we want to be able to review. Hopefully, in the New Year, I would expect some time in May or June, we will be able to look at those allocations.