Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At Aurora College, we have personal skills courses offered. We have the student success centres at the college as well, which provide some assistance in that area. In a number of communities, we have been offering bridging programs, or transitional programs, between school and work or not working and beginning to work. They would take a short training course that would help to build self-esteem and to assist them with some of the skills they would need in order to go into the workplace.

Thank you, Ms. Allen. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is no doubt that some of the companies out there have developed some models along what Mr. Nitah is suggesting. Diavik is a good example of that. They have a training group that goes into communities. They take a welding course, for example, pre-trades welding, and assist individuals through an instructor to be able to access and write the entrance exam to go into apprenticeship.

We have adult education programs, of course, which help people to upgrade themselves. Then we need to work with, and we are starting to work on an integrated basis with Health and Social Services to look at those kinds of areas. I am using the example for early childhood. I understand what Mr. Nitah is saying. You cannot just stop there. You have to do it for adults too, but early childhood is where we are integrating both our services together, to say in a community "Okay, why work in isolation from each other? Do it together."

I will use early childhood as an example. We are identifying the resource of people available, the resource, accommodations, et cetera, in communities. Where can we conduct programs? How can we do this? What are the shortcomings?

I think Mr. Nitah has a point. On an adult basis, we need to also be concerned about that.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, Mr. Chairman, this is a very good area. It has some concern for us as to how do we address the whole issue of more and more employment for Northerners? After all, that is what our job is, to ensure that our people gain the employment, that our people gain the benefits.

In the diamond development and mining area, there were socio-economic agreements developed and signed, which did address the amount of employment that could take place. That has not been the case yet, in the case of the hydrocarbon development. We are a bit in a problematic situation in that, for the moment, because the land permits are not issued by our government. They are issued by the federal government. They have not put the restrictions on there. What I should say, they have not put in place the kind of socio-economic benefits that we feel should be in place.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mr. Ootes.

From the early days, Mr. Chairman, our department has recognized that we need to address not just the hydrocarbon development and the mining development, but training in all areas of possibilities.

We developed a human resource development plan. That went to the federal government. We tried to get some money from them to help us out. So far, we are continuing our effort in that whole area to see if we cannot get the federal government to participate.

My ADM had participated and is continuing to participate in what we call an action team that consisted of RWED, ourselves, the federal government through DIAND, HRDC, the aboriginal groups and industry. The action team was going to move forward to request funding from the federal government through our human resource development plan. That all came to a screeching halt last September because of the need for the federal government to put money into the security issue.

We are continuing that. I am trying to revive that so we do get support for it.

Secondly, Ms. Allen is a participant in a team on the pipeline itself. A group has been formulated. Industry is the chair of it. Our two departments are part of it. Federal departments are part of it, and the aboriginal groups are part of it. That is to take care of looking at training and benefits of building the pipeline itself.

We need to go beyond that. Yes, there are opportunities that will be spin-offs, as you have referenced, that we need to say how do we get the training for those people? That is where I go back to I need support funding from the federal government. We as a territorial government have continued to put some money into this, to the tune of $7 million a year, which we started last summer, the Maximizing Northern Employment, because we have to build capacity for our own people.

Is it enough? Well, it is a lot of money for us, but we could use more. That is where I need the help from federal input here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Page 9-13, advanced education. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to relate that back to our plan to develop across the Territory all aspects of human resource development. It is a case of ensuring that there is training and skill development, not just mining and oil and gas, but that it is in all sectors of our economy. Hydro development has tremendous potential for us here in the Territories. We need to be able to build the capacity of communities and groups out there so that they can address issues like hydro development when it comes on their doorstep. What I am speaking of there is, for instance, the development and encouragement of financial officers within the aboriginal organizations, community governments, community corporations, that they develop financial officers, the administrative officers and so forth, so that the capacity starts to be there to be able to deal with the possibility of development in the Territory.

Hydro is certainly there on the front...I do not know where it is on the burner, but it is certainly a potential to be on the front burner.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess how I was saying this before was that by building the capacity, people have transferable skills, so that if an organization out there said "We want to drop some turbines into the river and we need the ability to be able to deal with that. How do we do it?" I guess what I was saying about developing financial officers or administrative officers, there are transferable skills that organizations can say "Now you work on this particular area for us to develop." Hydro development does not take a great deal of hands-on experience once it is built. There is more on the administrative end that is required.

I think the Member has a point in terms of saying what are we doing in terms of that, but we look at it in terms of in total, across the Territory, can we build the capacity of organizations? The organizations in turn will say this is where we need to go next. I do not know if hydro is already, and I will take your word for it, already knocking on the door, developers are saying let's go.

I think I am there to try and say let's build capacity for the organizations.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Nitah.