Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This motion is not to focus on one specific area or one community or one specific group. It is to focus on the whole north. In the Standing Committee on Finance, we look at the total budget, including this department, with that in mind.

Over the years, we hear the different problems that Members have in the communities, such as what Mr. Gargan has brought forward, specifically, and the idea is to try and address those kinds of problems. We know that there is a strategic plan in the works at the department.

We, as a committee, wanted to focus on philosophy for the education in our schools in the whole north. We are making this motion, or recommendation of motion, saying that there has to be excellence in the whole educational system. Let's all in the north here, with the Legislative Assembly, give direction to the Department of Education to emphasize the philosophy of excellence in our schools, for our children. That is what we are basically saying. It is not focused on one area or another.

I want to add further that this year, this Department is asking for $212.547 million. A major part of it is going to the schools, to the education of our children. Whenever a person goes and spends that kind of money, you want to see a return. You want to see what you are buying or what you are paying for. This is the biggest budget of any department of the government, I think, and we want to know, what is the return? We put that much money into this whole department. The results should be graduates. Of all students entering school, graduates should be the final results, and we are not getting them. Why are we not getting these results? This motion is an attempt to try to address it.

We are saying that we have to focus on a philosophy of excellence in the school. Perhaps if we do that, it might help in trying to achieve our goals of providing good education to everybody in the north, all the students who are in the schools. For me, as a Member of the Standing Committee on Finance, during our discussions, that is what the intent of the motion is. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.