Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How do you follow that Member’s statement?

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, in support of this government’s aggressive plan to increase our population base over the next couple of years, one must start to gaze into our future, and this future begins with our children, but more importantly those about to embark on their post-secondary education journey.

For years the Government of the Northwest Territories has praised its Student Financial Assistance Program as the key in supporting northern students’ return to the NWT upon the completion of their post-secondary education.

So one must ask, if these various grants and competitive interest rate loans are so compelling, why then do so many of our students choose not to return to the Northwest Territories? The answer is relatively simple. We are no longer competitive as we once were and the rest of the world has become more aggressive at building what I call better mousetraps. Let me explain.

If we look at the basic grant of $5,400 to $8,600 a year a student receives, which is referred to as a non-repayable benefit to assist with the cost of tuition, books and travel, this would barely cover 60 percent of the post-secondary schools in today’s dollars.

Now don’t get me wrong, we are still talking about a large sum of money here, but when it truly costs most students from $12,000 to $35,000 a year to go to school, the premise of $5,400 to $8,600 falls into perspective rather quickly.

I know that repayable loans are available at rates of 1 percent below the Bank of Canada prime business rate, but keep in mind that our very own students, many who are in hard to find positions in our territory, are being wined and dined by private industry and other very creative jurisdictions around the world.

Many private industries and creative jurisdictions offer full repayment of student loans, offer one-time bonus situations, cars, home down payments, spousal hiring guarantee, free daycare, vacation travel allowances and bonus weeks of vacation, just to name a few.

Let me use one example to illustrate my point. So ask yourself, you’re a student who goes to school for four years and gets a degree, you rack up a non-repayable benefit of $21,600 and a repayable loan of $20,000. Then you sit on the sideline waiting for a full-time position to open in the GNWT for six months, all the while picking up causal work not even remotely related to your field of study. You get a call that this full-time job is in a remote community with no housing and you have to get yourself there.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted