Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated in the motion, the Sahtu employment rate is at 55 percent, and also that 9 percent of the population in the Northwest Territories has a less than Grade 9 education, and 20 percent of the population has not yet obtained an education beyond high school.
When I did my numbers here in the Sahtu, there are 675 youth between the ages of 10 and 24 years of age. That’s a high population. That’s 30 percent of the entire Sahtu population, which is about 2,680 people, according to our stats here.
With all the oil and gas development, there is great potential for major industrial development in the Sahtu and the Northwest Territories that would greatly benefit everybody and also benefit a great demand for skilled workers. In a newspaper article in the Edmonton Journal on July 20, 2013, in the article, the lady, Cheryl Knight, the president of the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada,
said about the jobs that are going to come into the oil and gas industry. By 2022 the oil and gas industry will sustain up to one million jobs across Canada with about 200,000 of those jobs directly related to the oil patch.
Canada is getting ready, and we need to get ready in the Sahtu, in the Northwest Territories. The numbers are there that speak quite forcefully on the number of workers that we’re going to need.
There is an increased demand for renewable resource energy development in the Sahtu communities, creating a long-lasting demand for skilled workers and mostly local residents. In the exploration report tabled by Minister Ramsay in ITI, they give us a simple picture as to what type of skilled labour is going to be needed this winter, next winter, and in the future.
For example, the pending Inuvik-Tuk highway and other future infrastructure in the Northwest Territories are also creating a demand for skilled workers, especially in those communities. The Department of Transportation set up a training program up in the Inuvik-Tuk Highway Project. There is a training program going on there. We can do it also. Like I said, there’s going to be a growing shortage of skilled labour nationwide, and we need to respond to that.
Last year, 26 students in the Sahtu graduated from their high school in 2012, and the numbers are increasing each year. Seven students last year graduated from a post-secondary education. Another example of a training program at Aurora College and the Mine Training Society that partnerships with industry has provided successful opportunities for development of the northern workforce.
I ask all Members to support this motion. This motion talks about creating and having a planning study for a Sahtu regional institution of technology in the life of this government so that we can put plans together and get ready for the potential oil and gas exploration that’s going to happen in the Sahtu with all types of areas that we need to look at, from environment to oil and gas to administration.
I thank the Members for allowing me to bring this motion to the floor, and I look forward to their support on this motion.