Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have to do a number of things in this area. We have to continue to look at bringing qualified people north to fill jobs that are hard to fill. At the same time, as I indicated to the Member for Tu Nedhe, there are investments being made in the small communities, the $925,000 that was just announced for the Small Community Employment Program, the $350,000 for student employment.

In Aklavik I understand that the affected employees will be given full consideration under the government’s Affected Employee Policy, that there will be a number of different jobs available. We have money in tourism that will hopefully assist in the small communities. We have a fairly significant amount of money being added to the SEED program so that there is money to try to encourage community entrepreneurs, especially in the smaller communities. We’ve just about doubled our Community Harvesters Fund. We’re trying to do a number of things to promote employment in the communities.

As we look at being creative and thinking outside the box, I think there are a number of areas that can be explored, possibly under housing and how to do maintenance in a more coordinated way in small communities. For example, where you have housing, you have municipalities, you have the government, all with significant assets and none with enough money to do the proper job and other opportunities to join forces and look at a collaborative approach at a community level. There would be enough maintenance work to be done that journeymen and apprentices could be hired that are currently now probably flown in from regional centres.