Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just taking the opportunity just to provide some comments on Education, Culture and Employment. I think the most common saying that our people hear all the time, especially in communities, is that education is important and now more than ever as we move forward to what lays ahead on the horizon for the North, especially in terms of the North’s role in the global economics in terms of resource development. It’s more important that people encourage, especially the young people, to try and advance themselves to higher levels of education and ultimately to try and get degrees in terms of achieving their goals through university and studies. I think more so we need to encourage, that for some time, at least in my era, it was accepted that yes you need to go to school and advance yourself and if you can get your Grade 12 that’s good, but now I think times have changed. It’s more important than ever for our people to advance as far as they can. We need to ensure that it’s clearly understood that we encourage people, especially First Nations within the Northwest Territories, to try and go as far as they can and to try and be supportive and allow them to grow, to mold and at the same time just to recognize their efforts and their sacrifice during that time of their struggle to get their educational goals.

There are various initiatives that are very positive that I think the department has undertaken and been involved with. It’s a big department, because there’s education, culture and employment. But for the most part I’ve always been a very strong advocate of technology in terms of how it is that we use it to employ at least a medium to try to enhance education, especially for young people, because now we have a generation that are very knowledgeable in terms of computers, computer systems, iPads, cell phones. So the latest and most recent effort was to develop an iPad application for the languages, and I think that’s something that I think the department has to be commended on and to try to at least make a medium like that, a technological medium to make it at least accessible to young people so that they could use it to employ at least writing in their own language, reading in their own language and I think that’s a very big plus. That’s just one example of a few things that I’ve noted.

But there are concerns expressed to me in the community and one of the biggest concerns is the rates of graduates. Are we doing all we can, whether statistics could maybe focus on that in terms of how successful we are? But the concern is that we should have more graduates coming out of Grade 12 and advancing themselves to a higher level of education through university. At the same time, there are all these concerns that parents have always expressed to me. Well, how is it that my son or daughter could graduate from Grade 12 and when they go down to Edmonton or Vancouver why is it that they have to struggle? I mean, what happens during that transition? For the most part their conclusion is just the standards of education that we use. Perhaps we need to maybe have a curriculum that both considers the unique part of the Northwest Territories and the culture, at the same time just the mainstream Canadian society in terms of trying to ready people for entering the workforce. So I think there needs to be perhaps some discussion and maybe some focus in terms of how it is that we can make some improvements on that.

The other concern that I have is just on the rates of dependence. I mean, if kids are not in school, then obviously they suffer and I think there’s maybe some cooperative efforts that need to be considered in terms of working with the local district education authorities in terms of how it is that that circumstance could be remedied.

Also at the same time, we have a very burgeoning young population here in the Northwest Territories and there is almost a need for focus not only in terms of what’s happening right now. Right now there’s a lot of development in terms of mining in the mining industry. So they’re trying to focus and tailor training programs to make opportunity for people that are interested in a mining career to enter into that area of work, but there are also clear indications of some other things that are very significant that are coming down the block in the Northwest Territories like oil and gas. There’s forestry potential. So we almost have to try and diversify our approach and ensure that training programs meet the needs of people and the circumstances that arise.

In that instance, I don’t know if the department has done a long-term human resource development strategy in terms of perhaps a five-year or 10-year analysis on what will be the needs in 10 years’ time. We need to put some focus on that in terms of how it is that we could project the needs of our people down the road and what should we focus on right now. I think perhaps the department has done that and I would like to see something that could be revisited, and maybe in that instance, in that effort maybe an effort could be made to try and branch out into partnerships with regional groups or bodies that are at the receiving end, the federal dollars to

help them improve the human resources in their regions.

There are other concerns that I have. One of them is, of course, the lack of any capital infrastructure or aging infrastructure in communities. There’s always a need for more buildings. One in particular is that we have preschools or initiatives that are very successful, but then they’re having building issues. A very real need for us to see how it is that we can have a very successful preschool program, but then we don’t have a building, or else there are issues with the building. I think those things are immediate. They have to be dealt with to try to at least engage with the local leaders to see how it is that we can resolve unfortunate realities that we have to deal with at the community level.

Another thing that I wanted to mention too was, you know, there could be, at some point, if there are successful partnerships with regional bodies, there could be efforts to maybe establish trade centres in some regions or communities, and there might be an interest from community leaders to try and achieve a concept like that. I’d really encourage the department to look at building upon partnerships and looking at these creative avenues of how groups could come together in light of the constraining fiscal resources and need for cooperation and partnership. In those instances, perhaps you might have an achievement of where there’s a level of synergies and the output would be an effort that is clearly distinguished in terms of maybe a trade centre that could be established through the efforts of all sides.

The other thing that I note is just the closure of the Western Arctic Leadership Program. The Western Arctic Leadership Program in Fort Smith has been, I think, in my eyes, a very successful program. It created a lot of young leaders that have been residents in that place, in Fort Smith. It had some very committed house parents that made the sacrifice to try and help the youth of the Northwest Territories. They did not have the choice or else they made a clear, conscious effort to try and be in that residence and try to focus on the academics. Obviously, that’s a concern but whether that thing is a foregone conclusion, I don’t know. But I’d just like to distinguish that it was a very successful program for some years. It used to be that we didn’t have high school in small communities but now that’s normal and it’s very common to have Grade 9 to Grade 12 in small communities. But I just wanted to make that distinction.

Last but not least, if at some point you recognize down the road the need for a university, I think it’s real. I think this government, at some point, needs to see that, to try to at least have some discussion and focus in terms of how it is that it could become a reality. I think there are some very real issues that could be maybe focused in terms of some

discussions on some very global issues. Like, for one, on climate change. Things of that nature that could be a topic of study. Mahsi.