Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before we got back in session, I had the honour to attend the Aurora College graduation in Inuvik where I was able to give a speech to the graduates. I was very honoured and grateful to participate and to see graduates of all ages right out of high school to even see seniors and older adults. For them to take the initiative and invest into their futures and accomplish what they had set out to accomplish, for that I respected each and every one of them for the hard work that they did to get where they were today.
Although I did speak only at the Inuvik event, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all graduates in the Northwest Territories through the Aurora College. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the instructors, the staff, the
mentors and the families that supported these graduates as they went through the course of their years to get the diplomas.
As we know, the cost of living in the Northwest Territories is very high, that student financial assistance only provides so much money and a lot of these families – sometimes single parents – go through a hard time to get through those trials and tribulations to overcome those obstacles to get where they are today. That takes a lot of courage and a lot of determination. For that we should respect our graduates of the Northwest Territories.
With that said, I would like to take the opportunity to address what I had mentioned in my speech to all of the graduates. I did mention that our greatest resource in the Northwest Territories is not our oil, gas or diamonds; it is our people. In the Northwest Territories it is very unique that we help our people. We share with our people. We take them under our wing and help them become better people. If they are struggling, we try to get them out of those situations.
We need to invest more in our education, our health and our wellness of our people so that they can become educated, they can become healthy, so that they are the ones who can go out and get the jobs in our education systems, our schools, even translators. We need to put that investment there.
Once all our resources are gone in the Northwest Territories, we are going to be left with the people who were here first. We are going to be left with the people that are struggling to get through these jobs, left with people who are starting to get sucked into the hardships of economy development with the alcohol, drugs and addictions.
As the economy slows, we have to look at investing into something else and that is people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.