Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the past couple of years, since 1990, Fort Smith has been the home of the western Arctic leadership program. The western Arctic leadership program was initially started by the previous Minister of Education, the Honourable Stephen Kakfwi. The program has been in existence for the past couple of years and has been accepted as one of the most successful programs within the Department of Education, from the community viewpoint and I am sure from the viewpoint of many people in the west.
The western Arctic leadership program is a program for students, and currently they have students there from Colville Lake, Cambridge Bay, Fort Good Hope, Fort McPherson, Fort Smith, Inuvik, Norman Wells, Rae and Yellowknife. Also, Fort Providence and, I believe, Trout Lake. Many of the students come from across the north to learn many different things in this particular program. The program utilizes many different types of skills which are taught to the students. These include survival skills at a camp which they go to, firearm safety and other safety type programs. They take these camps every year, generally in the month of March. Even though on occasions camps have experienced 40 below weather, these students live under a tent in this type of weather. Not only do they survive, they seem to thrive on the experience they have gained through this particular program.
In spite of being involved in a full program, the students have two hours of study at night. The students find time to attend many meetings. I have seen them and observed, in the community, their attendance at many meetings and forums throughout the year, particularly when issues affect the Northwest Territories are discussed or at the local...