Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve looked at this department and I’d like to make comments. First of all, I’m glad the department is responding to the oil and gas activity by the planting of two positions in the budget so they can come and work with the people in the Sahtu to handle the increase of oil and gas activity. As to their role in the community, I’ll probably ask the Minister later as to what type of work they’re going to be doing to get the people in the Sahtu ready for the oil and gas activity.
As you’re well aware, we also have the new hospital and long-term care facilities. So there’s some activity happening there. So I wanted to really nail down and specifically focus on the training programs for oil and gas, construction, health care and also for providing some access training programs for teachers from our small communities that want to enter into the profession of teaching.
So we’re ready to move in the Sahtu and I think the spark for us was the number of oil companies that are investing into our region. It’s a God-given signal that we’re finally going to get some attention after many years of not having much activity.
So I’m going to focus on the investment and this has been an overall highlight of the introductions to this department; investment and where do we invest, how much do we invest and what type of investments will get the best return on the dollars that we’re going to spend in the North and in the Sahtu.
As my colleague Mr. Bromley has said, I’m glad that the Minister has written down something that he said a year and a half ago about putting elders into the school. I have to wait on this one here with that old face. I will believe it when I see it. I want to see how this program is going to be enrolled. I’ve been at it for a long, long time so I’m not too excited until I see a program, which we’ve talked about for a long, long time. I have difficulty understanding why it took so long. We’ve been at it for a long, long time and I don’t know what sparked the Minister to say, well, this is it. So I’ll wait and see, take a wait and see approach. I’ve been stunned once, so I have to watch the second time.
I’ve looked at the budget, and the Minister is embarking on some of the development that we’re going to have in the Northwest Territories. The most important development I see now in the Sahtu is the development of the young minds in our education system. I, like my colleague from Nahendeh, think our school is the most important piece of educational infrastructure in our communities. That’s where we develop the young minds of our students and this shows when we have graduations that our students are not graduating with the quality of a diploma. That really concerns me and it concerns a lot of people in the Sahtu. When we graduate our students, it’s not the same type of quality of diploma as in the larger centres. That’s where we have the haves and have-nots of our education. I think that the Minister needs to go to the federal government and ask the federal government if it’s owning up to its fiduciary responsibility obligations in educating our children and the funding that should be under that responsibility by the federal government. Too many of our students are going back to school and it’s become somewhat of a joke in our communities that if you graduate, you can just go back to Aurora College or are you going to go upgrading or are you going to work, because their diploma is not where they think it’s going to go in terms of post-secondary education institutions.
Mr. Dolynny talked about Skills Canada. Some of our schools don’t even have those types of services and programs in our schools to have our students go to Skills Canada. So we need to look at some of those things. If we’re going to be on equal par in having our students reach their fullest potential, then I think the Minister and his new team should really look at how do we really shake up the education system. So if I had my children going back into the Sahtu and when they finish they could
be just as good as the students in Yellowknife, Hay River or Inuvik in their education, that’s what I want, I want the fullest potential. Maybe we have to do things so differently in our smaller communities because we cannot compete with the larger centres. We just do not have the chemistry or biology or science program in Colville Lake. We’ve got to look at that. We can’t have a cookie cutter. I applaud the students in these larger centres. They’re doing good. But we’re one or two or three grades. We hang them. We’re not reaching their fullest potential. I think we need to shift our education almost into a charter-type of school, because the public education right now with the passing requirement or the social passing is not doing us any good. We can only fool ourselves, and someone’s got to save the empire. The emperor has no clothes on, and that’s what we’re telling our students. I hope that we can have some discussion on that. I believe that the staff could help us here. How do we reach the fullest potential of our students and get our parents in the Sahtu communities saying yes, my student finished Grade 12, and that’s a Grade 12. That’s not a Grade 12 with two more years of upgrading to get into a college or to get into a university.
Students in the Sahtu want to go to university, they want to go to college. Some of them want to be trappers and hunters. With the oil and gas coming into the Sahtu, and if we give the green light to do the new technology called fracking, then we need to prepare them to take that training. It’s very scientific. It requires a lot of training and a lot of educating. I think that we’ve got to look at many ways to help our parents help the kids to reach their fullest potential.
Sometimes it’s not all education. Henry Ford had what, less than three months of schooling? He became the richest man in the world. Thomas Edison didn’t even reach high school and he became one of the world’s greatest inventors. We could have that in the Northwest Territories. It’s how you look at education. It’s the mind, it’s the way people think. Right now I think the education is to collect information and memorize it and stamp it. We’ve got to develop that type of thinking with our education system. That’s what I’m talking about. We did not survive as Aboriginal people for thousands of years by… We had to be really smart to survive. That’s what I’m saying.
We’ve got to tap into that potential, and that’s why I am somewhat cautious as to the Minister’s announcement on elders. That’s who our true teachers are. That’s the Aboriginal way of having these teachers recognized as teachers, and not just coming in for prayer and singing and say a few words. Is there a certificate program? I don’t know. I’ll have to wait and see.
I think that our contribution to the North and to the Sahtu has to be recognized. The Minister has talked about some things in his opening comments that I’m going to go through when we go from detail to detail, but the Minister has a big department, a big responsibility, and we’ve got to do our best to support him and the staff to do this.
I say these words because I’ve been sitting here close to nine years. I’ve been going through the budgets and hoping and hoping. I say this because I care about the people and I care about the work that we’re doing, and I see it in the regions with our elders, with our school kids, our language and culture, social assistance, things that we need to prepare for what’s happening in the Sahtu. There is lots of oil and gas activity happening. We have to get our plan ready for educating and training. I hope to see a Sahtu trades centre there. Mr. Ramsay says, well, when the oil and gas are proven up, we need to look at some of those things. If that’s proven up, then that should qualify for a Sahtu trades centre.
I have much more to say but I wanted to tell the Minister that I will work with you and I will work on some of these things, but I need to see some things that are going to make a difference. You have made some, don’t get me all wrong here, but I’ll go through the department on a line-by-line. Thank you.