Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I share the same concerns as described by the two previous Members. One of the great concerns I have is regarding FAS-FAE and the lack of acknowledgement by the department within their budgetary process. That area has been covered very well by the two previous speakers, so I will move on to other areas of concern that I have.
The Minister concluded his statement with two answers to Mr. Roland talking about employment. We all agree that employment is the best solution to combat poverty and poverty situations, such as low education rate and low health rates, et cetera. However, as the Minister agrees, economic opportunities present challenges as well. The challenge that I see in the North, especially in the smaller communities now, is a cultural divide.
The title of his department is fitting; Education, Culture and Employment. His responsibilities lie in the area of education, educating people to prepare them for employment. However, in his opening statements in the budgetary process, there is nothing on culture here. There is some mention of language, assistance to language and communities, et cetera, but there is nothing this department is doing on cultural revival.
There are all kinds of ways to work with communities and culture, but there is no description of culture here. With people moving in and out of the communities and working on a two-week rotation, it is pretty hard to even schedule cultural events and participate in them. The challenge is going to be more on individuals than anyone else, but if it would be nice if the department would look at ways of helping assist community members, groups and communities, or even coming up with their own innovative ways of assisting people in the North to understand the cultures of the North, the Dene cultures, the Métis cultures, the Inuvialuit cultures, the Inuit cultures, the French culture, et cetera.
There is nothing within the department's budget or the Minister's opening remarks to deal specifically with culture.
The other area of concern I have deals with employment. Now that we are seeing a lot of people working on rotational work in the mines or within oil and gas industries or in the communities itself, we talk about spin-off opportunities to the mines. People are more qualified to go to work at high paying jobs, leaving employment opportunities in communities that were not there before.
The problem is now that there is no infrastructure in the community for daycares, I understand the department is working with early childhood development through the funding process. There are three areas that the Minister mentioned this afternoon, but those have age requirements. You have to be a certain age to participate in that. That is why I suggested if the Government of the Northwest Territories is willing to outdo the federal government by two years and give new parents up to three years paid leave or EI leave, then that is all right. However, the department is just concentrating on the early childhood development. What we need in the communities are daycares so that parents who want to work at six months or a year can do so.
We are seeing a lot of people working for the bands, working for the Métis organizations, working for the municipalities and organizations in the communities, whether private or public, missing work because they do not have babysitters. We are creating work and training people, but at the end of the day, if they cannot go to work because there is a lack of babysitters, then it is all for naught. They are back within the social envelope, back in line at income support. I do not see much in that area of the budget.
We should have anticipated this challenge coming up. We expected it and we talked about it and the Minister first talked about it on many occasions. Previous Ministers have done the same thing. If we are expecting a lot of employment, then we should start planning on addressing challenges associated with those opportunities. There is an equal reaction to every action. If more people go to work, there are less people to stay at home and take care of the kids and take care of the home, et cetera.
I am hoping to get some kind of commitment from the department that they will work with communities, they will work with other departments within government to establish facilities that will see the creation of daycares. It is needed everywhere. Yellowknife has the highest number of daycare centres in the Northwest Territories, but there is a waiting list for every one of them. It is not just the communities that are experiencing it, but the communities are seeing the worst of it, I think.
The employment sector of the Northwest Territories, the opportunities are there, but the people in the Northwest Territories, especially the aboriginal people, are having hard times getting jobs. Once they do get jobs, they are very low on the totem pole. Those who try to move up seem to be hitting the wall. It could be because of a lack of education, but I suspect sometimes it deals with other matters. Some people just do not want to climb the totem pole as fast as they can, but that may not be the problem of the department.
The level of education is still a disgrace. In the 21st century, in a westernized country where we supposedly have the best standard of living, we still have a very poor education system, or a system that does not seem to work for a certain segment of the population. Those problems have been identified throughout time, but there seems to be a problem with this government rectifying the problem. What is the big problem in trying to fix the problem? Why are they having such a hard time at getting aboriginal people graduated from high school? High school! Less than 50 percent of the aboriginal population has graduated from high school. Why is that?
I know there has been talk of people being pushed through the programs just for numbers and budgetary reasons. I think we are coming up with more imaginative ways of doing that and calling it employment and easy credit accreditation. We are cheating the people, as Mr. Roland said. If we are not giving them a good, valued education, then at the end of the day, we are cheating them as a government and as a program service provider.
The level of northern students, specifically aboriginal northern students, graduating from university is very low. I imagine that stems from the low level of graduations from high schools, but student financial assistance and the way that program is delivered does not seem to meet the need of a lot of the students up here.
I have a lot of calls. A good percentage of my constituency duties have been spent on student financial assistance. Students want assistance after they are in class, but they do not have the dollars to go buy the books necessary to participate in the studies. They may have failed a course here or there, or did not meet the exact course requirements. The fact remains they are down there, they are committed to going, but the rules that this government and this department have established are just too tough for them.
Are we establishing rules and procedures that discourage our northern aboriginal students from participating in the education system?
We have statements like we want our civil service to be representative of the population. What a farce. What is the level? How many aboriginal teachers are there in the Northwest Territories? How many aboriginal teachers are within our Aurora College system? Those are just some of the questions I have and I will be asking during the detail, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.