Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Item 14, tabling of documents. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, I wish to table the following document entitled Northwest Territories Professional Upgrading Assistance Application Form. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Item 14, tabling of documents. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to table a letter that I received from Fiberglass North. It is in regard to a letter that was sent to them from the Housing Corporation about the Alaska operation and why they were refused preferential treatment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 14, tabling of documents. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for the first reading of bills. Item 17, motions. Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in committee of the whole of bills and other matters.

Bill 1, Appropriations Act, 2000-2001; Committee Report 1-14(3), Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight Review of 2000-2003 Business Plan and 2000-2001 Main Estimates; Committee Report 2-14(3), Standing Committee on Governance and Economic Development Review of the 2000-2003 Business Plan and 2000-2001 Main Estimates; and Committee Report 3-14(3), Standing Committee on Social Programs Review of the 2000-2003 Business Plan and 2000-2001 Main Estimates.

By the authority given to the Speaker by Motion 4-14(3), the House is resolved into committee of the whole to sit beyond the time of adjournment until the committee is prepared to report. Item 20, consideration in committee of the whole of bills and other matters, with Mr. Lafferty in the Chair.

I would like to recommend that we continue consideration of Bill 1, and Committee Reports 1, 2 and 3 concurrently, specifically to continue with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment budget. Should we happen to conclude that, that we commence with the budget of the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On my right is Mark Cleveland, the healthy deputy minister for the department. On my left, Mr. Paul Devitt, my manager of corporate services. I am very pleased to see Mr. Devitt has recovered from his three weeks of illness. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we spend a lot of time sitting here talking about how we are able to generate revenues and about the jobs we can create from the renewable/non-renewable sector.

I think the one thing that we really have to be aware of is the cost to this government when it comes to the other aspect of our society. When you talk about the health care costs, you talk about the cost in the area of justice and incarceration, where it is costing this government somewhere in the range of $80,000 a year to house an inmate in jail facilities.

Yet when we talk about students and housing students in other facilities, we are talking about $40,000, which is half the cost of what it costs to incarcerate an inmate. I think we have to change the concept that we have about the society, and the have and have-not cultural groups we have in the Territories.

I, for one, feel that unless we bring the standards of education and drop the statistics when it comes to illiteracy, a lot of our communities in my riding, in the population aged 50 years and over, it is 36 percent. That is a high percentage of people.

You talk about the unemployment rates in some of our communities. In some cases, we are talking 40 to 45 percent, compared to the national average, which is eight percent. We start looking at statistics and we start to wonder what is wrong with this picture. I think a lot has to do with we have to do more in the area of education by making sure the resources we do have, in regard to the $167 million that is in the department, is being spent in a way that we are earmarking where the problem areas are.

We see there are higher graduation rates in the larger centres. We see they have good standards in regard to where we are going in terms of job rates, where the unemployment rates are low in the larger centres, but very high in the aboriginal communities. Just by using those two statistics for literacy, unemployment, this government has to do more to focus its educational programs and services to those areas so we can see different statistics. That is telling us there is something wrong.

Yet year after year, we come to this House and we talk about the problems. We continue to raise the issues, yet we continue to do things the same way. I feel we have to change the system so it is flexible and we meet the challenges we have in front of us. We are talking about taking advantage of the opportunities we have in front of us, especially with regard to generating jobs through oil and gas or the diamond industry.

We have a large portion of our population that is illiterate, that do not have anything more than a grade 9 education. They will not really benefit from these large scale economic opportunities. I believe I raised the question in the House last Friday on the statistics, especially in my riding, where you have the population 50 years old and over who have less than a grade 9 education. In the community of Tsiigehtchic, you have 39 percent. Fort McPherson is 35 percent and Aklavik is 38 percent, with a Mackenzie Delta average of 36 percent.

Those averages are too high. I would like to ask the Minister how he intends to deal with this statistical problem? On one hand, we know it is a problem, but on the other hand you are cutting the ABE programs. You are doing away with those programs in our communities where people who are on income support, their only other alternative is to go find a job or take training. A lot of these people on income support cannot even meet the requirements to go to adult education because of the literacy rates. They are also not to fill out the appropriate applications to get into these courses. I would like to ask the Minister, what are you doing for those people in our society who need more than what is there right now? Are you looking at any new incentives so that we can deal with these large percentages in our communities?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to cover a number of areas in this, to address some of the concerns of the Member, he speaks of unemployment rates and he also speaks of literacy rates.

It is very true that there are approximately 2,025 that were identified in the 1999 labour force survey who were looking for work. Most of those are below the grade 9 level in education. What that says, because they are at that level, there is a literacy problem for many people here in the Territories. In order for them to gain employment, there is a need for programs to address that. There are opportunities arising here in the Territories, potentially through resource development. We have to partner with industry to address this issue. We have to look to more than just ourselves to solve the problems of getting people into jobs.

The industry, I believe, is very interested in ensuring that the youths of our labour force are there and can potentially be developed. We do have some programs that are delivered through the College and some programs that are delivered at the community level, Mr. Speaker. Are they adequate? I do not believe so, but we have to live within the resources that we are provided. One of the areas we have identified as a possible solution is the Non-Renewable Resources Strategy. It is one of the areas, as perhaps the years go by, that we can utilize to address this problem. Thank you.

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?