Thank you, Mr. Chair. As far as I’m concerned, we do the children there a disservice. When we always talk about the principles of supporting education, it shouldn’t really be a matter of what community you’re from or what region, what big community you’re from or what school system you belong to. These principles are our basis of belief, and they’re the fabric of why we do things. It shouldn’t matter, again, where you’re from, what language you speak, what your background is. The same things, I believe, should be spread throughout.

As far as programming goes within the school, I certainly think there need to be more support mechanisms. I’ve often spoken about the fact that I think school systems — each school district, that is — should have a social worker in there making sure they’re available for the kids. Your teachers are your teachers, whether they’re seen in a good light or in a negative light some days, the enforcement side. The fact is that they’re your teachers; they’re not social workers. I think every school system could benefit from someone like that. When I’ve raised the issue of attendance or whatever problems come in, I think school systems could benefit from something like that. I talked to a couple of districts already, and they think it’s a good idea. I think it’s an evolution, again, of the education system, where we can now offer the best product to our students, and that’s really all I’m after.

Mr. Chair, as time runs out, I’m just going to quickly touch on these things. I won’t go into as much detail. I see there’s a new investment of $500,000 for the Arts Strategy. I’ve spoken in this House about my support for that. I certainly would like to

see an awards-level culture-recognition program, whether it’s recognizing it through a yearly event or whatnot. I think it continues to further strengthen people’s belief in what they do. We can talk about the business of life, but sometimes it’s the quality of life that we tend to forget about. I think the arts always bring quality of life.

Mr. Chairman, as far as college programs go, I’m pleased with the investment that goes to Aurora College. I certainly take no issue with it being in the community of Fort Smith, although it makes you wonder from time to time. My issue really has always been and will continue to be about safety of students and certainly the interest level of students, whether we’re running programs in Yellowknife, in Inuvik, or anywhere else. The fact is that if they’re not subscribed to, I think we have to start to ask ourselves why we’re running them there. To the credit of Fort Smith — and I have said this publicly — they do have good programs running there, so I wouldn’t want it to be thought I can’t recognize that as well.

Mr. Chair, moving on to career and employment development, although I don’t see it here, I’m sure it’s just a matter of a briefing note or two away from mentioning the Foreign Worker Program, that I’ve talked about. I think it fits very well here under the career and development area. I think that will be our next strength, leading into helping bring the North forward in employment strength. We have a number of employers out there that struggle to find technical expertise. It just doesn’t exist in this small market, and we can only keep sending so many advertisements to Edmonton and Calgary and continue not to be able to fill these jobs. Then there are the middle-level or lower-level job opportunities. The business sector is just hungry out there for any opportunity to employ anyone. I think this would be a good bridge-building opportunity for our North to continue to build our base of not just population but our diversity.

Mr. Chairman, even with a foreign worker in the Northwest Territories we still get our grant for Canada on that recognition. They don’t actually have to be a Canadian citizen. They can be someone here on a foreign-worker pass, and we still qualify for that. So our Finance minister, even though he’s on short days, I’m sure knows that it’s money in the bank if we can get them here on our roll call when they do our stats across the territories.

Mr.

Chairman, as I highlighted about Aurora

College, I can’t forget the fact that I’m very supportive of further extending our trades here in the North. Just recently I’ve talked about the cooking school opportunities that exist before us. I would certainly hope that that isn’t missed. The value it can bring is not just in the fact that we could be developing opportunities, but we could be

expecting more from ourselves, which I think is something really interesting in and of itself. We could put a higher demand on the skill level we offer people, and I think the need and desire for that extra skill level is out there.

I’m hearing about mining camps that want trained staff at a higher degree. This is certainly the window of it for cooks. Throughout our city there are a number of Red Seal chefs, and there’s great opportunity to expand this service. Mr. Chair, I don’t think this is a complicated program. I know the Minister has spoken and is, in his words, cautiously optimistic in his way of supporting this. There’s still a lot of ground to go forward before it’s, obviously, embraced fully, and a lot of work still needs to be done before it becomes a real possibility.

That’s it, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to provide those first few comments. I’m pleased with the department and the work the Minister has been doing. Lastly, I’ll say that I’m pleased with the relationship the Minister has had with the committee members both on social programs as well as with individual committee members doing their work. Thank you.