Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member has made a number of extremely good observations in this whole area. The fact that we do have low levels of education, low levels of literacy is of concern. It is a criteria that enters into this whole area of how do we face the challenge.

As the Member stated, the challenge is on our doorstep. It is coming onto us very rapidly this winter, where oil and gas companies are doing substantive exploration work in certain areas of the Territory, so yes, it is a tremendous challenge.

I believe the other item the Member is emphasizing is that we should not do this all ourselves and he is absolutely right. There are organizations out there that are able to deliver a lot of programs on their part, and they are willing to contribute to this. I will use, for example, the mine training committee which has developed short-term courses, 19 in total, that they can apply to train people on a very quick basis. I met recently with the mine training committee and one of their desires is to expand their particular program beyond the mining area and include it into the oil and gas sector as well.

What they can do is take the modules they have developed, then they can move that around the Territories. They are in the process of doing that. I am very supportive of that.

As well, the college, and I believe some Members may be familiar with that, recently developed a mobile container to move from community to community to do short-term training. That is done in conjunction with the college as well as industry. I know for a fact that the oil industry themselves are very keen on any area of support they can garner. They are very busy drilling and exploring in other parts of the country as well, so that the amount of resources that they can access, the human resources they can access, has its limitations. They are interested in doing what is possible with the people here in the North. They want to ensure that they can access a workforce here. They are prepared to work on areas of support that they can possibly provide help in.

We have just signed a memorandum of understanding with Petroleum Industry Training System out of Alberta and they offer numerous courses. These are the people who are the professionals in that area. They are the ones who can put people to work very quickly.

Then we get into the whole question that was raised earlier, of education. Yes, we do need to get people upgraded. We need to get those who are in the school system to try and stay in the school system as long as possible. That is one of the efforts we have to do so we get people who enter as high a level of job potential as possible and keep them moving through the stream. After several years we are maximizing the number of people who are in the system and it cannot be just at the lower levels. We have to ensure that it is at all levels.

I will use another example of training that industry is interested in having undertaken. BHP had a meeting with me and explained their breakdown of employees. Some are in the unskilled, some are in the semi-skilled, and others are in the skilled area. The numbers there are quite interesting. In the unskilled, and I will be hypothetical here, but it is approximately 20 to 25 percent. In the semi-skilled, it is approximately 20 to 25 percent. That is a large percentage of their workforce. Many of them are northern people who are employed in those particular areas.

BHP wants to ensure that they take those who are in the unskilled area, that they are able to move into the skilled areas as opportunities arise. The challenge is that they need to have developed the individuals in those areas with better literacy levels. They did a testing of some of their employees and they want to ensure that the employees do have an adequate understanding and capability to perform their jobs.

The company itself has approached our federal Member of Parliament for some support, and they have approached me as well for support for their particular request. It is an indication that industry is interested in hiring Northerners. It is a matter of how that is accomplished, and we are working hard to ensure that we have cooperative, open door access to industry to find out what their needs are. We believe we have identified that somewhat in here, how to address some of their problems. In turn, we need to know what kind of contributions industry can make towards employment of our people, as well as training of our people. Thank you.