Thank you, Mr. Chair. The comments I have are just more in the sense of general comments to the Minister. Certainly, there will be further discussion once we get to the details of it.

I want to just let the Minister know that in our region there’s a big need to look at our education system and we’ve certainly had some discussions with the Minister regarding how we look at our education system in the Sahtu. The issue of high school students graduating with quality high school credits and there is a difference of opinion on this subject. However, the matter is we have high school

students in our communities who are walking around, hands in their pockets, going into the income support office, getting income assistance and living off income assistance and we are not doing any good, Mr. Chair. We need to look at that in terms of how we get them out of that state of dependency on the government to a state where we want them to be productive.

There are a lot of young, good people in my region that want to do good in their life. Like any child, they want to do good in their life by making an effort to get into school, get a trade or get a degree and come back to the community to be role models for the children. I don’t think any of them are very happy in going to the income support office for a handout.

I think two things, Mr. Chair. The first is look at our education system how we are producing graduates. We want to produce quality graduates. I mentioned to the Minister that we want to work with this Minister to have a symposium in the Sahtu region and the Minister has agreed to work with me. We’ll have to get some details together and have this much needed symposium in the Sahtu to really take charge in terms of how we produce high school graduates that can go out to post-secondary institutions or go to a trade school and do good and come back to the communities. So that’s one the Minister and I agreed to work on together. Actually, I have some draft proposals that are going to begin going to him shortly in terms of how we do stuff like this together.

The other one is income support really needs to be looked at. What are we doing in terms of... The Minister has indicated there is an increase, actually double the case files in terms of income support. Are we creating more dependency on our young people to the government in terms of funding? Or is it just a sign of the times that there’s no economy? The percentage of employment in our region is low. Mr. Chair, the employment rate, for example, in Colville Lake is 53 percent; Fort Good Hope is 52 percent; Deline is 46 percent; Tulita, 49 percent. That’s the employment rate. In Norman Wells, the oilfield, it’s 82 percent. The unemployment rate is 20 percent in the communities and only 7 percent in Norman Wells. So we really have to look at this in terms of taking a hard look at the means of the Income Support Program. We need to get our youth out. I have faith in terms of their ability to be a productive member of the community. That is something that I really want to look at. I will look at it more in detail in terms of going into the detail in the budget here.

Mr. Chairman, we have a young population in the Sahtu. There are 45 percent of our population that is under 25 years of age. That is a high number of youth under 25; 45 percent of our total population of the Sahtu. We need to look at programs that would

benefit them and services that would benefit them. One of the things that I like about the budget is a look at trades programs. It is long overdue. I am looking forward to the Minister to see how they would be implemented into our schools in the Sahtu, see where they would benefit, something like the Mackenzie Valley Highway or the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline and other initiatives.

Nutritious Food Initiative; I think the traditional foods need to be more exposed, more educated in the communities in terms of foods that are taken from the land. They need to be promoted and need to be explained by the elders on traditional foods. We need to have discussions with the elders. I look forward to receiving more things like that. It could happen.

I guess I wanted to close in terms of schooling in the Sahtu. I talked to our educational chair superintendent some time ago. I asked them what is it that they need to help us with our education. One thing he said is that we certainly need high school teachers in our schools; the funding is not adequate; the funding is not sufficient. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, we need high school teachers in some of our communities in the Sahtu. We had extra teachers in our communities. It will make a big difference in the quality of education our students are getting. Right now, they are just doing barely minimum standards to meet the requirements. It is not fair to our students. However, on the other side, that will cost a lot of money to get extra teachers into the Sahtu. Here we talked about that. How do we get an extra three or four million out of this government for teachers? This is only one region. The superintendent and I already had some discussions on that in terms of having high school teachers in our communities.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister made a ministerial statement -- I don’t have the exact day -- in terms of contribution of elders in our education system, our schools. I guess I want to know that this Minister is going to do something. I don’t know how long we have been talking about it. Still we haven’t seen it. This Minister has to do something to bring our elders into schools. It would be wonderful to walk into one of our schools and there is a room there, an office or room where there is an elder there. They go see the elder. That is part of our teaching. It is part of our culture. He is a Minister. He could do things that could ensure… These elders don’t know our system. They want to encourage parents to go into schools. Bring the elders in there. Elders can go talk to the parents when they come to school and all that. That is the way you get parents into the school system. They listen to the elders. Prominent elders in education, elders that speak up at meetings and tell us how things are going to be and how things should be. That is how you get the parents in there. That is all the advice I am going to give to the Minister in terms of how he is trying to

get parents involved in schools. Get the elders in the schools. He is a Minister. Let’s see him do it. Thank you.