Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We, as well, have hopes for Highway No. 9. As I pointed out to the Member, not over supper but we did have a chat, I don’t think there’s been a budget that I can recollect where the Norman Wells to Wrigley portion of the Mackenzie Highway has received as much attention, because it is a critical chunk, or the next segment of the Mackenzie Highway. So we are, once again, looking at that.
The Bear River Bridge, as well, is on our shortlist of bridges. As I indicated, there are calls in the next few days with Ministers and deputies to look at what the federal government has put on the table and what it means and how it’s going to flow.
The issue of a stand-alone region has been a journey for the Sahtu. I recollect when I was Health Minister where we moved health responsibility into the Sahtu. So it’s coming incrementally, and as the activity in the Sahtu picks up, the areas that the Member has talked about with transportation and such are going to follow as a natural evolution of authorities and responsibilities as we pick them up at the territorial level. Regions that are struggling on that same path of development will pick those up in a timely, measured way. So that is going to come.
I appreciate the comments about junior kindergarten and the Housing Program. We agree that when it comes to our own students, we have to do a much better job of tracking them as they graduate from high school, as they go off to school. We can’t wait until the fourth year to talk to them again.
We know clearly that other jurisdictions go into universities and recruit students in engineering, teaching classes, wherever there is a need. They are much more aggressive than we are. By the time we get around to it, decisions have been made, minds have been made up or, worse yet, we don’t contact them at all. Then they come back and we face some of the challenges that the Members have raised here where they get caught in that catch-22 situation where they have education but no experience so they can’t get a job, and because they can’t get a job, they can’t get experience. So there’s a whole number of things we have to look at in a more critical way and we definitely have to step up our game in that area. That’s part of our broader strategy as we look at raising our population from 2,000 in five years. So, I thank the Member for his comments.