It is good to be back, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to provide Members with highlights of an important and historical event that took place earlier this week in Saskatoon. For the first time ever, Ministers of Education from across the country met as a group with the leaders of the national and regional aboriginal organizations to discuss aboriginal education. The summit hosted by the Council of Ministers of Education Canada provided an opportunity for a pan-Canadian dialogue among the participants on eliminating the achievement gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal students.

I wish to thank Betty Villebrun, president, Northwest Territory Metis Nation and Bill Enge, president, North Slave Metis Alliance for joining me at this conference. The Dene Nation and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation were not able to join us at this event but they have conveyed their strong interest

in this important topic. I also want to thank Mr. Robert Hawkins, Member for Yellowknife Centre, for joining me at the summit.

Aboriginal leaders from across the country spoke with great passion about the concerns and the challenges they face in their communities with respect to education. Some of the issues are more particular to situations related to education of students on reserves, for example. However, there were a number of common elements that the leaders identified in their presentations to the Ministers. These include the need to strengthen aboriginal language and culture in the schools, the need to include aboriginal history in school curriculum, the need for early childhood programs that help young people get a good start in life, and the need to provide supports to students who wish to pursue post-secondary studies.

The summit gave me an opportunity to reflect on a number of the programs and supports that we have in the Northwest Territories that support aboriginal education. We have early childhood programs that include aboriginal language nests to provide young people with an opportunity to learn their aboriginal language. We are working on curriculum for our schools to provide students with further opportunities to learn their culture and language and we are developing resource materials that support the languages. The history of our aboriginal people is also included in various curriculum including social studies and northern studies, with northern studies being a compulsory course to meet graduation requirements.

The Literacy Strategy that we recently released spans the lifespan and includes goals and objectives to improve literacy levels for all ages and also aims to support aboriginal language literacy. We have a Teacher Education Program that leads to a full degree and we also have an Aboriginal Language and Culture Instructor Program that prepares educators to teach aboriginal languages. The curricula for these programs have been reviewed and adapted to ensure aboriginal perspectives are included. We are also undertaking work to renew the Aboriginal Languages Strategy in which we will be working closely with our aboriginal language partners to enhance, revitalize and promote our nine official aboriginal languages. As Members are aware, we have also launched a new initiative to work with various partners in the Northwest Territories, including aboriginal governments, to identify initiatives that will help eliminate the education achievement gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal students.

Mr. Speaker, the summit participants all agreed that improving aboriginal education achievement is a responsibility for everyone and that we can address

many challenges by working closely in partnership. Participants also agreed that improvement in education for aboriginal people is not only beneficial to aboriginal people but is beneficial to Canada as a whole. Aboriginal people are the youngest and fastest growing segment of the population. With an aging workforce in many parts of the country, it is clear that aboriginal students today will be a significant portion of Canada’s future workforce. Having a well-educated aboriginal workforce is of significant importance for Canada’s future economic and social well-being.

In business, they say success is based on location, location, location. For education, I believe that the focus of success is the student, the student, the student. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.