Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wonder what our government's short-term plans are for summer employment this year. I understand that Mr. Dent was to meet this week with federal government representatives concerning how much money is coming to the NWT for student summer employment, and I'm anxiously waiting for a report on that.
In my opinion, the funds are very late in coming because post-secondary students have finished their courses already and have been job hunting for over a month. I sincerely hope that the GNWT also will not use these funds to hire students at the casual wage rate of $22 an hour which, I understand, under the collective agreement, in some cases, they have to. I hope that we will see use of those funds provide a basic student wage, and in order to maximize the number of students who can be hired in government.
In order to take advantage of these one-time funds, I hope the personnel services of this government can arrange a special student rate more suited to the beginning skills of students, either by an immediate arrangement with the union or by temporary legislation. We have little time left to institute this temporary program and I would hope we don't let this opportunity slip by. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.