Mahsi, Madam Speaker. Today I would like to express my concern with regard to the educational post-secondary incentive, consolidated and emergency loans. This has to do with the amendment to the policy that happened last year. It gives additional funds to students in the north who are attending the teacher education program at Arctic College.

We have some students in the south -- specifically in the University of Saskatchewan -- who are working towards obtaining their Bachelor of Education degrees. This policy does not apply to them. There is a feeling here that they are discriminated against.

The idea for this policy is to try to achieve 50 per cent of all teachers in the north to be northern or aboriginal by the year 2000, which is a good policy, Madam Speaker, and I totally support it. However, the aim of this policy is misdirected by applying it only to students who are attending Arctic College. In Arctic College, if we develop teachers, they receive a certificate, but at a university, there are northern students, specifically aboriginal students, who are trying to obtain Bachelor of Education degrees and the focus should also be placed on them. It is a lot of work to go back to school, in Arctic College, and especially in universities where you have to be able to do exceptionally well in your studies to obtain that degree after four years.

I would like to say that this Department of Education incentive policy should be aimed at the development of teachers, whether they receive a certificate at Arctic College or a Bachelor of Education degree at a university in the south, such as the University of Saskatchewan. Mahsi, Madam Speaker.

---Applause