Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister responsible for Education. I am alarmed with statistics that I have come across, the percentages of illiterate people in the different constituencies versus the percentage of the population who are illiterate in the Mackenzie Delta, 36 percent. In the community of Tsiigehtchic, it is almost 39 percent; Fort McPherson, 3five percent; and in Aklavik, it is 38 percent.

There are other constituencies with even higher percentages, in some cases up to 40 percent. So I find it awfully alarming, Mr. Speaker, that we have these high percentages of illiterate people in our ridings, yet we are trying to talk about economics and making sure that we do the best for the people, because one of the statistics states that the higher the literacy level is, the greater the success rate they have in the labour market.

Yet, Mr. Speaker, many of the people that we find who are in trouble with the law have low literacy skills and that leads to crime. There are also other statistics in relation, a person with low literacy is usually on unemployment or is usually receiving social assistance.

So I find it alarming, Mr. Speaker, that we as a government have not done more to try to attract those skills. So I think that realizing there is a connection between these percentages and aboriginal communities that illiteracy has a direct relationship between crime, poverty, unemployment, poor health and low income limits success for the people in those communities.

So I would like to ask the Minister of Education exactly what is his department doing to improve on these statistics and bring down the percentages of illiteracy in the aboriginal communities?