Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased today that this very important subject has been moved into Committee of the Whole, so that we can take our time to address it and put our heads together, so to speak, to see what kinds of creative and progressive ideas that we can come up with.

It was suggested by someone in the House this week that perhaps all this attention on education was, in fact, due to some well-organized lobby effort and to that I want to respond that this is not the case. The concerns about education are coming from many sectors and it is certainly something that has been raised at the last two constituency meetings that I have had. This is not some artificially created crisis or concern that, in fact, the people out there are very much wanting the education of their children to be addressed.

When we talk about education, it is easy, when you look at the statistics, to become overwhelmed by it, maybe even a little bit depressed by it because of those pressures on the system that Mr. Ootes referred to that we seemingly do not have any control over. We do not have control over the number of students coming into the system. We do not have control seemingly over the things that are causing such a high proportion of our students to be in the special need's category.

I can tell you that as an MLA there is little that I have experienced to date that is more perplexing than having a parent come to me and say, my son or my daughter just needs to have some extra help or just needs and assessment for special needs, or just needs to go to a summer program to get some extra help in a certain area. We have no response to those kinds of things because it is always the same answer: There are no resources to address that. I must say that I have been very upset by not having answers readily available for people when they come to you and they are concerned about their children's education.

It is important, on the subject of special needs again, that we do have proper diagnosing of where the problems are. I believe that we need more ability to identify what the needs are so that we can address them effectively with programs and, well, just the most effective assistance that we can possibly offer. I think that kids sometimes go through school and they may not be functioning well, but we do not really know what the source or the cause of it is.

In Hay River, I do not know, seriously, what we would do in Hay River if it were not for volunteers in the school working with kids on a one-on-one basis. It is very extensive and I would say it is maybe even unique in the north that we have so many people in the community that are dedicated to this, but that is not the answer in the long-term, although we so greatly appreciate what they do. It is not something that is going to solve the problem in the long run.

The needs are very diverse across the territory, with respect to teachers and teacher housing. In some ways I think we have shot ourselves in the foot, so to speak, getting rid of all the housing as we did and then realizing that we do not have any place for people coming to the non-market communities where there is no affordable housing for them. I think that was a small price to pay to attract and keep teachers. I am disappointed that some teachers, in fact, at the end of this school term are leaving the north due to something as simple as something that we could have addressed and solved, I believe, something as basic as their need for adequate accommodation.

I do not know exactly what our mandated, legal obligation is to our students in the north. That is something I am going to be asking the Minister about later, because if we received the funding from Ottawa and it is unconditional, I do not know exactly where we can take the resources from.

We must have some responsibility to ensure a certain level of education for all students, not just the students that thrive and that do well and get through the system, but also to address the needs of those who do have special challenges. I think that if we, as a government, bury our heads so to speak, on this and do not deal with it, I think, that the burden and the fiscal costs are going to be really burdensome in the future. This is one of those things that if we do not address it effectively, as we are going along, that we are going to pay a much greater price in the end. I do not think that is good management or good for the people involved. I think we have to face up to the fact that we do have a challenge before us that the system is under a tremendous amount of strain and that we have to face it head on.

Mr. Chairman, that is all I want to say for right now and I will have a number of questions for the Minister at the appropriate time. Thank you.