Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Relating to my Member's statement I made yesterday regarding the education budget, I guess again we sit here today discussing the education budget and how we can improve our childrens' education and at the same time stay within the very tight budget that we see ourselves in. Yesterday we heard from colleagues all stressing the need for the government to listen to the residents of the Northwest Territories, as small as our words here in the committee of the whole. This is one of the few times that we have had so much interest in one topic and that alone shows how important the concern is. During discussion yesterday, we saw a very dismal sight. What can we do to ensure our residents receive the highest possible education? We see the highest percentage rates of many troubling items, we have the highest pupil/teacher ratio in Canada, the highest literacy problems in Canada and the list goes on. We must find solutions and we must find them soon.
This morning on the radio I heard on an interview from a younger mother, her topics, of course, was the poor education levels she is witnessing within the capital. She went on to say that if our education system did not improve, her family would have to leave Yellowknife and move south in order for her children to get the education they deserve. This is what is happening here in our capital. Where are we when we are told that we have been the best system in place in the Northwest Territories, what is to be said in the smaller communities and regions. Recently I was told that there would be no more adult education offered in Rae-Edzo and this is a real blow to our residents. Where are our older residents supposed to get education? Currently we have many residents waiting to increase education levels. Some have decided to go back to school and are attending Chief Jimmy Bruneau School, possibly sitting next to their own children or grandchildren. This is not the way of offering our adult education within the communities.
In my community, we have a fairly new building designed for adult education and with everything else, is under utilized because of lack of funds, to hire staff. It is a shame to see this. Although my community is the largest Dene community in the Northwest Territories, we are not the only ones to have this and many other problems dealing with education. I believe this gives us just one more reason why we must continue to lobby for more funds in this area. If we, the largest community, feel the effects of under-funding for education, what do the smaller communities feel? Is their education system in such bad shape that it is almost hopeless? I certainly hope this is not true. I stress again, that we need to increase the education budget, but more importantly, we must also look at levels of education in the North to ensure that we are not just throwing more hard-earned money into a system that needs to be totally rebuilt from the ground up. The children are our future, we cannot gamble their lives like we are currently doing.
These are my general comments relating to my Member's statement yesterday. Some of the items at the community levels are really an essential need for improving their funding and more needed at a community level like Mrs. Groenewegen said. I guess I can believe her too, because we all speak for the residents of the Northwest Territories is to make sure we have more funding. I certainly have touched on the great concern the community had about the possibility of having some insertion or a reinstatement of the funding towards the adult education programs. I believe we will be having some older people have a better education system, a system by now relating to them, because when I mentioned about some of the older students who are going back to school and are sitting next to their children or classmates in the past. That is not a way to treat our adult education. I guess we pretty well have to have a good facility back in our communities and we hope that we can utilize them better and have the adult education system re-instituted in a community level. These are some of the areas that I am concerned about. I was wondering if the Minster would be able to give us some comments on the topic of adult education at the community level. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.