Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to talk about the chronic unemployment problem that is faced by most of the regions in the Northwest Territories. As Members know unemployment is one of the largest factors including some of our other dreadful social problems that face the territories such as alcoholism, teenage suicides, and family and sexual abuse. The list goes on and on. The traditional hunting and trapping lifestyle that has sustained many of our people for so many years has been wounded as the fur industry activists endure assault after assault by animal rights activists. In the interim we have done a poor job of preparing our people for wage employment by increasing the education and job skills of our citizens. What is left is whole communities of people who cannot even find employment enough to access unemployment insurance. In some communities we have upwards of 60 to 80 per cent of our people receiving some form of social assistance annually. Mr. Speaker, this is not a pretty picture.

With that said, I would say that we have done some good work during the past year to help change this. We are attempting to concentrate on improving the educational system. We have taken steps to ensure that northerners obtain jobs from government contracts and we have instituted employment training programs in conjunction with the construction of capital facilities that will improve job skills of our people within the smaller communities.

However, more has to be done to stem the tide until these programs can be fully implemented. One such proposal is the re-institution of the Local Initiatives Program. Such a program was recently advocated by the Keewatin Regional Council at their fall session. I will be tabling a copy of this resolution later today. Such a program should be community based and employ people on a short-term basis to work on community improvement projects. It should be employment driven for areas of high unemployment. People could work for two or three months at a time, then would be able to access unemployment insurance benefits at the end of the project. Funding for such a project could come from a variety of sources such as reprofiling social assistance monies. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to complete my statement.