Thanks for that question.
In the Northwest Territories, like Quebec we have clear accountabilities for early learning and child care, and we report annually to our constituents and to Canadians on how our system is performing. So we think we have the same sort of approach as what is taken in Quebec. We have a good plan, and we want to take the money to deliver it.
To the question about tax points, that would not work for the Northwest Territories. There are three territories. It wouldn't work for any of the three territories actually, because we don't participate in equalization. We don't have a big enough tax base in order for it to make a difference. In fact, depending on the territory, between 70% and 85% of the total funding comes as transfer payments from Canada. So for us it would be essential that we'd be talking about grants in order to improve on programs.
That is where we ran into a problem with the 2003 agreement. We'd agreed, all across Canada, all ten provinces and three territories had agreed on the terms—how we would account for the money, how the money was to be spent. None of the three territories would sign, because we couldn't agree with the formula. Because if it's based on per capita, the amount of money we would get is so small that it wouldn't allow us to increase the numbers of spaces in the territories by an equivalent amount to what they could with the economies of scale they have in Toronto, for instance.