Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since this week is Education Week I would like to speak about the education system. Obviously, one of the most vital things that I think is part of the education system is our educators. We have some 800 educators in the Northwest Territories, and I think we need to take our time this week to recognize them and the hard efforts they put into our communities.
Yesterday we had the opportunity to meet with the NWT Teachers’ Association. They were able to provide us with information. It makes you think when you see the listing, in all 33 communities there’s at least one teacher. Even the small communities like Kakisa and Jean Marie River. They’re a vital part of our infrastructure in the Northwest Territories.
In preparation for making a statement on education, I was thinking, what do I want to say? I obviously wanted to talk about teachers. Personally, when we think of our lives growing up, we always have
teachers like Irma Miron for kindergarten, Jack Cooper for Grade 5, and then Mr. Gerry Goudreau for high school. He was a high school educator who gave me advice on where to go for university and stuff. Those are some of the people who influenced me in my life. I’d like to take the opportunity to thank the educators who are there right now working long, hard hours, grading papers and all this other stuff during their off hours.
In the process of this I was thinking, how do I thank them? Talking to the Teachers’ Association, they have a program that has been running for 16 years. I knew nothing of it until yesterday. I’m not sure why I didn’t know that, but it’s Thank You for Making a Difference. It’s a public awareness of the positive contributions NWT educators make to the lives of students. Every year they have students who put in notes about their teachers and the positive roles that they give them, then there’s a draw for some people to come in from outside of the communities to come to Yellowknife and they get to meet with each other.
Again, the whole concept is for me to thank the educators out there who are doing the hard work in the education system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.