Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Nitah, your time has run out, and I will put your name on the list and come back to you. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to take this opportunity to make general comments and ask the Minister some questions. Mr. Chairman, my question relates to how we go about creating or training more people so that they can be employable in this market that we have. Mr. Chairman, I think everyone knows we live in an unprecedented period of a boom all around the world, especially in North America. There is such a demand for trained people in all sectors. There is a float over to southern Canada, and we are experiencing that in Yellowknife especially, maybe not so much in communities.

I know in Yellowknife, it is not just the professional positions, while we have a shortage of doctors, and lawyers as well, nurses, teachers and engineers, we have a shortage of anyone with computer training. We have a shortage of people with basic office skills. I know small law firms have a hard time keeping anyone with any skills. I would even suggest labour work. Not to mention, Mr. Chairman, the shortage of people trained to work in the diamond industry. We have not even tapped into oil and gas yet.

I would suggest our Territory is not ready. Our training capacity is far behind what may be necessary to fill these jobs.

I have also heard that BHP is in a position of having to institute a literacy program, because their employees are not functionally literate to do the work. The company probably does not want us to speak about that sort of thing.

Given that we know the population of the Northwest Territories is 44,000 people, and there must be some expert advice on how many people can be employable, because so many of them will be retired and so many of them will be babies, and everyone in between. I wonder if the government has the statistics on the labour force requirements out of that 44,000? Where are those people located? Where are the jobs located? I think we are very fortunate in having all of this opportunity. It is a good time for us to look at what we have. We insist in socio-economic arrangements with these massive project companies. Even in government, we are not able to fill some positions with as many affirmative action candidates as we like. There just are not people out there who could take the job. Some may disagree with that, but I think we live in such a boom-time, people are highly valued, especially trained people. Can the Minister provide any information like that?

Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The whole area of human resources development is one that is coming to the forefront very rapidly because of various factors.

The mineral industry provided opportunities several years ago, and we started to capitalize on that. We were able to position people into that particular industry. We have the oil and gas activity increasing in the Mackenzie Valley. It is becoming very evident that there is potential in that area. We have just completed an Oil and Gas Human Resources Development Plan. We are working with Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development as part of that particular program.

There is no doubt we have a resource of people here in the Northwest Territories. If we can educate them and bring them to a level, there are opportunities for our people. Up and down the valley, there are some 2,000 individuals that have indicated they would like to work and have no work. Many of those have a grade 9 or less education.

The challenge here is to see that we get literacy programs, education programs, work with industry, which is a very important element in this whole thing, to ensure people receive training to potentially fill many of these up-and-coming jobs.

We do track where the jobs are in the territory. As I say, we have done a human resources development plan for the oil and gas industry, but in other areas as well, when there are jobs, we track them and make people aware they are available. We make people in the high schools and colleges and the public aware of those particular programs.

We are working on a draft of a career development directive here in the Northwest Territories. We hope to have that completed. Some of the areas, we do provide work in is the labour force development. We have our post-secondary programs at Aurora College, which provides nursing and teacher education programs, pre-employment training in the mining. We have the labour market development agreement and we provide our student financial assistance and income support for people, but they have to make a productive choice which allows them to go into a study area. Thank you.

Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I believe that education has to be something that has to be done in partnership. I fundamentally believe that a government has a responsibility to produce trained people, or at least trainable people, but then the individuals themselves have to come halfway as well.

The worst thing that could happen to a person is to be forced to be educated for something they do not want. There has to be a massive buy-in. These people have to want to work in the oil and gas field and so on.

The Minister indicated there is some sort of plan, but I think it should be very specific and focused and narrow. You have to do a really good study. Mr. Chairman, I am also aware of the fact that the diamond mines, as well as some of the other businesses in town, are prepared to enter into a training arrangement with the government. I have heard the figures are upwards of $2 million to train people. These companies will do anything to have trained people so they can hire them. By and large, they want to hire Northerners, especially aboriginal people.

Can the Minister tell us if there is anything going on in the department to work with the industry in a close way? Not just consulting or meeting together, but having a very targeted and focused program with something as detailed as saying we are going to have this many people from these communities in these jobs by this time and they need these programs, and they have to go to school for six months and have a bullet-proof plan that also has buy-in from the people up and down the valley or around Yellowknife.

I think it is time. The opportunity is here and we really have to be focused on finding those people, who can be trained and who should be trained and target them and give them the focused resources we need so they are going to be ready when the pipeline comes in or when the second diamond mine comes in and De Beers comes in and on and on. This is a very important area, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Lee is correct in that we should be working closely with the major employers and others that may become employers out there. It will be part of our success down the road if we do that. The corporations and those who are employers are the ones who know what the requirements are for people in the jobs. They will also have a direct interest in ensuring their employees have the qualifications to do the jobs that are needed. I will give you an example. I do not mean to concentrate on the diamond area, but the example is one that will be and can be applied in any kind of area of major development, such as oil and gas.

Diavik is a company that is looking at developing a training module program of 16 modules. They are working with the Dogrib people to hire a certain number of people and put them through these training modules. They are looking for partners in this and want partnerships. We are discussing things with them, and that is the kind of thing that Ms. Lee is speaking about, to ensure that we follow up with.

We have to do that, because with this kind of potential major development that is on our doorstep, it will hopefully carry through, and we have to do those types of things. We cannot do this alone. We cannot develop this fast enough to meet the requirements out there. The companies themselves are looking at our population as being a potential resource. They are interested. It is a matter now of can we also provide the resources to be able to do that, as there are financial restrictions for us at this particular time.

That is where the Non-Renewable Resource Strategy comes in very importantly in our whole thinking and thrust. We have to continue to concentrate on that. We cannot, and I must emphasize this, only do major industry. There is also a need to do it for those who wish to work outside of the industry, people in the communities. We need to ensure we do not concentrate solely on one aspect, because there are potential opportunities in the communities for people to gain employment.

If people do become employed with the major industries, chances are that these are people who are already there with some expertise. They will leave positions in the communities, the small businesses in the communities, the community corporations will require replacements. I am not saying that is going to happen. I am saying that is a possibility that could be there. We need to work on that whole human resource area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. We are dealing with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We are on general comments. I have Mr. Miltenberger, Mr. Bell and Mr. Nitah on my list. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to get back to an issue raised by my colleague, Mr. Dent, regarding the targets set by northern teachers and aboriginal teachers in the Northwest Territories, 50 percent by 2003.

I was not quite sure; was the Minister backing away from that target, or that is no longer a target? May I have some clarification please? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that is the target that was set, and we are focused on that. I just want to make mention that we have enrollments for the fall. This initial enrollment for the fall for the Inuvik Campus is 19 individuals, who are all aboriginal. For the Yellowknife Campus, it is 39, with approximately 50 percent aboriginal. For the Fort Smith Campus, 15, 12 of whom are aboriginal.

It looks like we have a total of 70 individuals who are aboriginal and entering a program this year.

Mr. Ootes, do you have something to add?

Last year, our enrollment was around 40, Mr. Chairman. We have significantly higher enrollments happening. I think that is a very good sign.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister indicate where we are in terms of progress and percentage towards meeting that target? Thank you.

Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This will take us a minute to look up, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Maybe in the meantime, Mr. Miltenberger can ask another question and you can get back to the answer on that question. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question I wanted to follow up on is the question on the literacy strategy. The Minister indicated they were working on a directive, which I see as significantly different than a strategy, but it would be linked to the language strategy.

I was wondering if the Minister could elaborate on his vision of a comprehensive literacy strategy, and the component parts, how it would tie into the other areas within the department as well as link inside and outside of government; the NGOs, the communities, and to the other sectors of our society where literacy is such a fundamental issue. Thank you.

Mr. Minister, did you get this last question? Are you ready to respond to the one previous? Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the last question, it is early in the development of this. The directive is nearing completion, but we feel that it will require some work to link it to other areas that are of importance, such as the aboriginal language strategy. We can focus on that, but it is not there yet. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Minister, have you or your colleagues had the opportunity to collect the information for the question asked previously?

No. We do not have that information here, Mr. Chairman. We will have to get that information for the Member.