Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my statement today is around the employment opportunities that this government has to offer and the people who have made a choice to make a career with this government. They have put 20-odd years in working in all sectors of the government. I have a real concern when it comes to the makeup of our government in the senior management areas and the different sectors of our economy where we are not the employer of choice now. We have other sectors out there who are offering employees of this government the option for, in most cases, a better salary, benefits and an opportunity to succeed.

Mr. Speaker, this issue has been raised time and time again. We have policies in this government in regard to affirmative action. We have looked at the area of promoting people to ensure that the government reflects the geographical make up of the North and the population of the North. In senior management positions, there are very few, if not a handful, of aboriginal people in the senior management of the government, from deputy ministers to assistant deputy ministers to directors -- even superintendents at the regional level.

We have to do more to ensure that we do not lose these people to the other sector because of frustration, to realize that we do not have a monopoly on the people of the North anymore. We are not the employer of choice and we should not take them for granted. We have to do more to assist the employees in this government and ensure that they do have a workplace that they feel comfortable in.

To ensure that they feel that at the end of the day they are happy to go back into that workforce, knowing that they have an alternative to the Government of the Northwest Territories.

We talk about Maximizing Northern Employment; we talk about opportunities in the oil and gas and diamond industry; the federal government is talking about expanding. We have lost a lot of good people from this government to those different sectors already.