Human Resources committee  That's a tough question, because parents never regret having money in their pockets. I would have to say it is really difficult for us to assess now whether or not that's turned into more support for child care in the territory.

Human Resources committee  Thank you. I'm minister for education as well, and early learning and child care programs come under that ministry. There is a clear alignment. We have developed clear lines of what we expect to see in the programs. We have a direct role in supervising and in ensuring that opera

Human Resources committee  It's an interesting question given the fact that in the north we don't generally have reserves. In the 2005 agreement, we brought this up with the previous government as an issue. The federal government still has an obligation to aboriginal peoples, whether they're on reserve or

Human Resources committee  I said in my comments that I think the bill should be scrapped and that we should get back to the negotiating table. That would still be my position. I hope there's a federal investment at the end of the day, but I'd like to be involved in determining how it's apportioned.

Human Resources committee  No.

Human Resources committee  Obviously the devil is in the details. In 2005 the provinces and territories spent a considerable amount of time negotiating with the federal government to achieve a clear understanding of what each of the QUAD principles meant. We haven't done that on this bill, so we're not sur

Human Resources committee  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 wh

Human Resources committee  Thank you. I think the minister from Nova Scotia has put it quite succinctly. I would agree that we want to be partners. We saw that in the 2003 agreement. We were partners in how that was negotiated. We had agreed with the terms and conditions. We had all rejected a universal

Human Resources committee  Similar to Quebec and Alberta, I think we would say that it is an area of exclusive jurisdiction for the provinces and territories. While we're willing to come to the table and negotiate, as we did for the 2003 accord, we respected each other's differences. So Quebec in that agre

Human Resources committee  Over the past two years—because I don't have it separated out to one year—we've seen about 200 new spaces created in the Northwest Territories. I can't tell you how much it has cost us to do that, since the growth of those spaces was largely in family day homes. There wouldn't ha

Human Resources committee  I was involved in the negotiations with the federal government at the time, and as you heard earlier, we were satisfied with the terms and the stipulations, the rules that we were going to sign on with, but we had not signed the deal, as had none of the territories because we wer

Human Resources committee  In the Northwest Territories we don't have reserves, so the bill wouldn't have an impact on reserve populations, typically. That wouldn't be one of our issues.

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, committee members. I'd like to thank the committee for providing the opportunity for the Government of the Northwest Territories to make a presentation to you this morning in respect of Bill C-303. We're concerned by the manner in whi