Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Wednesday of this week, my colleague, the honourable Mr. O'Brien, made a statement in this House in reference to the disastrous health problems that have plagued his home community. He included a statement saying that this incident only serves to illustrate the need for us in this Assembly to take dramatic action to deal with the social and economic problems being faced by communities such as Arviat. We can't just be driven by deficit management.
Like Mr. O'Brien, I also support the idea of Premier Morin's announcement to establish an advisory council on the economy and employment, for which lie will invite business people from across the NWT to provide him with advice and ideas.
It will be invaluable for the Premier to get input from the business community and equally invaluable for those ideas and viewpoints to be passed on to Members of this House. In that regard, I would suggest that the Premier's committee not become overweighted with political representatives from this House. However, I agree that the economy and employment must be given the same emphasis by Members of this House as we are giving deficit management, and that we create a mechanism by which we can play an ongoing role. I would support the establishment of a special committee of this House to also work on figuring out how to repair the northern economy.
We, in this House, must not deal solely with deficit management; let's not just roll along and let these costcutting measures lead us to despondency, let's wrestle with this ugly problem, let's develop a parallel vision with goals of where we want to go so that soon we will not solely be concentrating 100 per cent on cost cutting. Let's get back to building our economic future. Let's help kick-start the economy.
I would fully support the establishment of a committee made up of four ordinary Members who could study such issues as unemployment -- which, by the way, is the highest percentage-wise, in Canada -- a committee which could tabulate and review reports such as the SCONE report of 1989. This special committee could provide a valuable linkage to the Premier and could provide ideas that could be floated with the business community and industry, perhaps such initiatives as creating internships for our youth whereby we can involve industry and business to create entry-level jobs for youth entering the job market.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.