Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try not to repeat everything my colleagues have said. They have made some very good points. I think the Minister has addressed many of them. I guess we do not want to go round and round here, but there are some specific things I would like to address that either for me are highlights or are very important to my constituents.
The first point, Mr. Chairman, is this issue of magnet communities. I do not think it is going away for the larger regional centres. I think they will continue to see an influx of students from communities as families move to the larger centres because, quite frankly, that is where the services are. If they cannot get the services, be it health care or other things in the smaller communities, they come to the larger centres. With them come young students who enter the school system.
We have seen as recently as this year, where there have been some situations where parents have been unsatisfied with the level of support in classrooms. There has been both varied level of ability in the classrooms, which I think is probably becoming more and more common, but also behaviour problems.
One of the things that we see when children come in from smaller communities -- and I can speak from experience, as I moved to Yellowknife from a much smaller community and know there was quite a struggle for myself in transition -- we see that if you are behind coming from somewhere else to a larger centre, you are going to be frustrated in school and you are not going to enjoy it. I do not think it is going to be much fun, Mr. Chairman. I think with that comes behavioural problems.
I think there is a real need for the department to take it upon themselves to look at implementing some sort of a transition program for students coming from smaller communities to help them adjust to the life in a bigger centre. It can be quite a shock, I believe culturally, Mr. Chairman, and in other ways. I think this is something we certainly need to address. I have raised it with the boards in Yellowknife and they indicate they are looking at this, but I would like to see some support from the department in this area.
On the Literacy Strategy, I wanted to make one point about consultation. I think one of the main, important initiatives and thrusts when the consultation was taking place coming from some of the people the department interviewed -- I know because I was at one of the meetings with several other MLAs, Mr. Dent, Mr. Braden -- we indicated that it was important to us to see that this was a government wide initiative, not Education, Culture and Employment out on an island, not Education, Culture and Employment left holding the bag and all of the other departments saying "That is reading and writing. That must be Jake's concern, Jake's problem. That is not our worry."
I think it is critical that if you look at any of the services provided by this government, we need to address literacy concerns. We cannot have applications for lending, especially in some of the smaller communities through the BCC, that are so convoluted and complicated you would need a lawyer to get through them.
There are many instances where you can see where other departments have to buy into this Literacy Strategy. I think it is more than putting $100,000 toward plain language training, although I admit that it is a very good start and a very good initiative. I was really hoping to see some collaboration. Maybe the Minister can speak when I am done to the collaboration that did happen between other departments, because I am very interested in this. It could be that I am just not aware.
With maximizing northern employment, Mr. Chairman, the guarantee the Premier first put out to the public raised some expectations. Now it is about delivering on this. I think we made a guarantee that we were going to provide jobs for northern students who were trained nurses and teachers. I am concerned that these guarantees do not become make-work projects in the public sector. I think we know that we have economic development. We know that we have demand. There is a real need to collaborate with the private sector here. I know the Minister has indicated that is their intention in his opening comments. I am not saying that we do not need public sector jobs and it is not a great idea to get students involved. I just do not think it does any good to create jobs that would not otherwise be required, so I hope we will look at that.
Also, on the issue of guarantees, we do not know exactly what the details are going to be. I have indicated in the House that I have had calls from constituents who were very excited when they heard the Premier's announcement. One woman in particular has a daughter at university who is a northern student. She is going to be a teacher. She called me after hearing the Premier's announcement and said that is great news. Did you hear the Premier has basically guaranteed jobs for northern students who are trained as teachers? She was saying her daughter could now save money and pay back some of her student loan because she would be able to live at home.
I do not know if we ever received an explicit guarantee that jobs would be guaranteed in students' home communities. I think if you talk to my colleagues, there are certainly jobs for nurses and teachers in many of our smaller northern communities. If we are guaranteeing that these jobs will still be there, I simply give to you, Mr. Chairman, that is simply market demand. As I have indicated before, guaranteeing jobs is fine. Guaranteeing that we are going to provide adequate housing for teachers who come to the communities or for nurses who come to the communities or adequate support for these people, so they are not working 14 hours a day and working without vacations, that would really be an achievement. I hope the department will look a those kinds of things when we talk about maximizing northern employment.
I am also specifically interested in recruitment and retention issues and bringing northern students back here. I think it is great that the department is looking at some sort of interest relief for students who are paying back student loans if they are willing to come back here. It seems to me it would be pretty simple to administer. I think it is good the department is looking at this. I think it will make a difference. We need to get people who grew up in the North back here because we all know that those are the people who will stay here.
On the Aboriginal Language Strategy, I was interested to see that a draft has now been rolled out and is now out for consultation. I do not believe it has come to committee. I know we have been asking a lot of questions about this strategy. We are very curious to know how it is linked with the Literacy Strategy. I am just amazed that with all of our concerns, we were not privy to this draft. Quite possibly, it has come to us when we were in session already and we just have not been made aware, but I certainly hope we have it and we are being considered on this.
My last comment, Mr. Speaker, is on oil and gas training. I recently had an opportunity to go up to Inuvik for a dinner and meeting with some industry and government people in oil and gas. I tell you, Inuvik is really hopping. It is just night and day from when we were up as a Caucus. I could not believe the number of rental vehicles all over town. Everybody is excited. The mayor is talking to me about what a job it has become because of all the activity. He is thrilled about it.
I think we really have an opportunity here. It would be a serious mistake if we missed the boat and did not spend, not hundreds of thousands of dollars on training, but millions. When we sat down and talked to a lot of these folks in the industry, I thought the concerns were going to be around the regulatory regime. They told me "No, we just want to know what the rules are and we are wiling to live with them. We understand that we are going to have to respect the rights of the people, consult everybody and as long as we can see the path laid out in front of us, we will do the work to get there. We are more concerned with the lack of trained Northerners. We are going to try to hire Northerners, but we are going to certainly need people who are trained."
Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development had a strong presence and was involved in organizing this meeting, but there were not departmental officials from education. The Minister or the deputy were not there. I think it was a missed opportunity because we had a lot of people asking us where our government people responsible for training were.
I think it is really important that Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development collaborate with Education, Culture & Employment, and that as an Assembly, it is important for us to find money for training in the oil and gas industry, not just in the Mackenzie Valley and the Inuvik region, but also in the southern parts of the Territories that have potential for oil and gas. I hope we will look to do that. Thank you.