Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I feel we can do what we are doing right now, which is not much, or we can pay for it tenfold down the road when it is going to cost us ten times as much as what it is right now if we do not deal with this problem.

We have to break the cycle where we have a lot of people who cannot get into basic adult education because of the literacy level they are at. I think this government has to take more of an incentive to deal with this, where we look at statistics, especially in our aboriginal communities, where the one thing for sure is that if you are illiterate, there is a direct relationship with the crime statistics. A lot of the people within our jail facilities are illiterate or do not have the education to allow them to improve their lifestyles or get a better chance at getting a job.

The question about not having the basic education requirements to get a job creates poverty for those people with children. Then you talk about unemployment. A lot of the statistics we see in our communities, you are talking about 40 percent. Then you talk about the health problems in our communities. Many of those are associated with illiteracy.

You talk about financial income support. The average income for people in our small communities is $17,000 a year. For the Minister to make this statement that we do not have the resources now and we have to work within our means. That has to change.

The government has to realize that we have a national problem here in the North, just as we see across Canada. When it comes to First Nations people, they are on the lowest scale of residence in Canada. Their health expectancy is lower than any other cultural group in Canada, and yet we can sit here and say, well, we do not have the money right now. We already have it allocated. It is a cop out.

Is the Minister going to do anything to change the problems that we have in our communities when it comes to people that find themselves illiterate because they do not have an education? We spend millions and millions of dollars on those that do, but we are not meeting the goals that we set. What are you going to do for those people?