Thank you. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman, I want to raise an issue that I had talked to the Minister about but I would just like to put it on record here, and that has to do with the shortage of labour for employers in Yellowknife and I'm sure in other places in the Territories where there are a lot of activities happening. Especially the fast-food places, franchises that operate in Yellowknife. Not the highest paying job, but nevertheless I think the employers are making their best efforts to stay competitive and they are falling victims of a really heated market, and competing with places like Alberta where we often hear of employers giving incentives like buying I-pods or sending young people to programs after so many months of employment in order to attract young people to work in these places and to keep them there. There's a bit of that going on here in places like A&W, or Tim Horton's or Pizza Hut. I'm just saying all the names in general are really challenged to find people who could be fully employed to ensure that the operations can continue, especially during holiday times. I know that one of the businesses, the owners had to cancel pre-planned holidays because a lot of employees quit before holidays. They have a hard time finding people in the summertime, and a lot of them are resorting to using, I don't know, by word or mouth and informally, by previous visitors, they're using student visitors or university students from abroad who come to Canada on a yearly visa with a limited eligibility to work and make a little bit of money to help them with visiting and some of them make a stop in Yellowknife and work in these places.
I do appreciate, Mr. Chairman, that that is not exactly the jurisdiction of the NWT perhaps, but it's something the Minister is responsible for labour and I see here Labour Market Development Agreement. I realize it's to do with the Employment Insurance Act, but this is an issue that I would like the Minister to pay more attention to.
Another thing is, I was at a all-day meeting, I think Walk a Mile, Walk a Mile With Me or Walk a Mile in My Shoes. It was Walk a Mile. A conference where a lot of immigrants and the people who serve immigrants in our community were there. I know that ECE staff was there and there were lots and lots of questions and concerns being expressed there from people who are Canadian citizens but are new to Canada and none of them are really able to work in the fields that they're trained at. There was one lady who has, I think, a Masters degree in Engineering and the best job she could get in Yellowknife is working in an office. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just that if you have skills and education that you can contribute, I think the government's...I think our government can do more to play our part in working with our federal counterparts to address that.
So, you know, the labour market as a whole, I'd like to ask the Minister what work he's doing to address the...I guess those are two separate questions, but maybe I could just give it to him to see if he could update the House as to what he's working on in those two files. Thank you.