Mr. Chairman, I suppose that I will be asking more questions when this new criteria, or education strategy, is introduced in the sitting in February and March. I will be asking this during the question period for the purpose of clarification and validity of that new approach. However, Mr. Chairman, I would like to make several general comments on the need to recognize education as a priority. I understand the government is making the social housing shortage a priority. I am not disagreeing with that. However, I think we should not be confused between the crisis of social or public housing shortage and the planning priority of education. I think a lot of answers can be made down the road when you have good educational programs. I think that has also been demonstrated in Greenland where they have 200 years of education. They have become a lot more independent and competitive in the free market. Also, if you look at that market, it's approximately 4,000 Inuit students in universities and colleges. Although we're very far from Greenland, this is the kind of aggressive approach they have been taking.
I think we are doing the same thing in the north, especially with the parents and teachers now, with the new attitude toward education for their children. I think we, as the government, must respond accordingly. We simply cannot simply preach about affirmative action programs, high unemployment of the aboriginal people and the high importation of the outside employees for construction, police, nurses, teachers, et cetera. I commend the Minister for taking on the fresh look, not just on the attitude for education, but also in the capital planning that will be initiated.
Today's reality in the communities is not what the government figures, or what the formula is for finding out that communities require a certain number of classrooms. I hope we will be making a more realistic, rather than a bureaucratic or scientific approach, to figuring out what our needs are for school programs in the communities. These are the general comments I wanted to make at this time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.