Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not want to spend too much time on this, but it has been my experience and the experience of the North that once industry moves in, the people start filling those positions, whether it is at the beginning of the construction period or during the operations. Once a person is in there, it is pretty hard to remove them.

Look at our Affirmative Action Policy. Why do you think we do not have a lot of aboriginal people or people who qualify under the Affirmative Action Policy within the public sector? Unions and rules and policies do not allow us to get rid of people from positions that we could fill with our own policy designates.

I strongly encourage the department to look a few years down the road and apply their resources and training programs so that people are able and qualified to fill upper-management and middle-management positions within industry starting today.

Let us not train them on how to use a chain saw or how to drive a truck. Let us look into the future a little bit and design a program around what we see in the future, not today.

Getting back to the public service training, I am just wondering if these training dollars are available for employees of non-governmental organizations or aboriginal governments who deliver programs and services on behalf of this government through contractual arrangements? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Assuming the problems we are facing in the communities is the lack of trained personnel working for the chief-in-councils or the Metis councils or the municipal councils in just general bookkeeping, et cetera, that makes it very difficult for the government structures to carry out the duties that they have. A lot of the duties they have are contractual arrangements to deliver programs and services on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Why are these programs and funding sources for the public service training not part of that contractual arrangement that the government has with municipalities and other aboriginal governments? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Public Service Career Training Program was established to provide training opportunities within the Government of the Northwest Territories for Northerners. It was one of a series of programs that was used to support additional northern employment. It has been in place for a number of years now. As I mentioned before, it has been quite successful in providing opportunities for Northerners to develop the skills they need to move into the public service. It is certainly one of a range of programs that would be used in the area of maximizing employment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I would like to encourage the department and the Minister to look into the future a little bit. As a government, we have stated publicly that we have initiated processes that would see devolution, devolving more and more responsibilities to communities to deliver programs and services that the Government of the Northwest Territories currently delivers, so that the municipalities and organizations and communities can deliver programs and services on behalf of this government. As such, they should be entitled to any dollars and programs that current Government of the Northwest Territories employees have to upgrade their skills so they could do their jobs better or they could upgrade their skills so they could advance within their organizations or be able to a qualify and move within the Government of the Northwest Territories.

What I am hearing is it is just for Government of the Northwest Territories employees who are working for a department. I would say a lot of programs and services delivered for the people of the Northwest Territories are being delivered by people who are working for organizations outside of the Government of the Northwest Territories. That should be recognized.

The quick question is does the Minister recognize those individuals as important people in delivering the Government of the Northwest Territories programs and services? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we are going through the process of devolution and devolving more responsibility for the delivery of programs and services to the communities, it seems that we are putting more money into bringing more people into the public service within departments of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

That seems contradictory to me, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister explain the other programs he is talking about a little bit more in detail so I could have a better understanding and so that the people out there listening can have a better understanding of what programs and services or programs and dollars are available for people who are working for band councils, municipal councils to take advantage of for training? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.