Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All week along I have been talking about education, and today I would like to talk further about the education of our children. I have been talking up to this point about how we need to put more money into the student support. We need to put more money into PTR, and we need to make sure that more money gets into the education system.

There is another critical factor that will have a profound effect, Mr. Speaker, and that is parental involvement and interest in the success of our children. I had a constituent stop me this week, Mr. Speaker, and tell me what an affect they felt the teacher was having on their child's education this year. We talked for some time about their child and how well he was doing this year, but what struck me was the parent's interest and involvement in their child. I think that really, more than anything, is one of the most critical factors. I think parents have to realize that without a quiet place to study, without nutritional meals, without early bedtimes, without taking an interest and reading to children and helping them with their homework, their children are really up against it, Mr. Speaker.

I think, in fact, children and teachers are fighting a losing battle if they do not have this parental involvement.

I know that in my life as a child, certainly without my parents having a strong influence, I would have been playing road hockey with my brother and friends late into the evening and would have been eating candy four meals a day, Mr. Speaker. I think we have to consider exactly how important parents are in their children's education.

None of us are happy with the graduation and success rate of the kids in the Northwest Territories to this point. We can do better and we know that. In fairness, Mr. Speaker, in the south, we are oftentimes talking about third and fourth generation of high school graduates. In the Northwest Territories, often we are working on first and second. In southern Canada, parents clearly have a different experience with the education system and with graduation themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I think this is one of the reasons a program like the Aboriginal Head Start Program has been so successful, and continues to be. It requires the involvement of parents. Today, Mr. Speaker, I would like to encourage parents...