Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Minister, to the table. I want to look at the
progression of having the required infrastructure in our small communities and I am going to quickly allude to the Sahtu region, to the existing learning centres from Aurora College in our small communities. I have made note of it, Mr. Chairman, that I was in Deline last week at the economic leadership strategy meeting for the Sahtu region. In the economic leadership strategy meeting they talked about the appreciation of the department and looking at the needs assessment and no one was in the Sahtu region today. We have our appreciation that we can now say these are the needs assessments in the Sahtu. Can we now start matching those needs assessments to the existing facilities that we have or do we need to create additional infrastructure?
I was approached by one of the board members from the land corporation and the board member talked about the Aurora College Learning Centre in Tulita, where possibly a cooking program, training program, could be there. Right now we just don’t have that infrastructure. You may have it in Norman Wells, maybe, with the camps and cooks and that, you may have it in Deline with the Grey Goose having the facility there, so we wanted to look at that and ask the department, given that we have a certain amount of days left in this government here and how fast government works to get things done in our communities, is that a possibility of starting a second phase, I guess, to the needs assessment, to look at matching the infrastructure to the needs assessment and making sure that we have the facility if and when the oil and gas again ramps up? We have spinoff for those types of work that they are going to do in the region, such as under the exploration, the seismic, that we have qualified people that can be qualified to go into those camps as certified cooks or maintenance or office administration, some of those things. That’s what we want to look at under infrastructure.
The other one, of course, is something that the region talked about, also, was a training centre, we don’t know what kind, we haven’t yet seen the feasibility study. There are existing facilities right now in Norman Wells. The old Mackenzie House has been shut down as of yesterday. The last person who was out there shut the lights off. It’s an icon building in Norman Wells. It’s a 30-year-old building used by Imperial Oil and other contractors that come into Norman Wells. It’s a facility that has been there for a while. The leadership was looking at it. They don’t have the assessment of the costs and all the other things that go on to look at this facility. Is it worthwhile to the department to look at this and say is it possible, and if not, what else can we use it for if we’re looking at a future trades centre in the Sahtu region? They have the facilities there. The rooms are there. A kitchen, cafeteria style, is there. You can use that facility, so we want to look at that as an opportunity.
We appreciate the work that you’re going to be doing in the Sahtu communities for the energy needs for the schools and some of the things that our schools are desperately needing, such as Colville Lake, and based on that, I would also say I support other schools that need a facility in their communities to get the best type of education, because with that, from our reports that our students in our small communities are not doing well at the grade level. They’re actually one or two grades lagging back from their actual grade level. I don’t know if that is connected to the infrastructure we have or just the way things are at. That’s the quality of education we have now in our small communities.
I always said there are have and have-not communities in the Northwest Territories. There are communities that do not have some of the basic educational funds as in the larger centres, and we have to do without it. That’s a reality. There are communities in the Northwest Territories that are… Like in Canada, there are have provinces and have-not provinces. That’s a reality. By looking at the infrastructure and looking at the Sahtu, we can change that. The department is in the position to make a difference in a child’s life with the education. I supported you with Junior Kindergarten. It’s a good program. I see the benefits happening now in the Sahtu. That’s good. We need that.
Education and culture, we’re starting to move that. Like I said earlier in the House, the Sahtu had three key, essential components to make it work: sovereignty, institutions and culture. The culture is strong in our region. Like I said, I came to a point where in our leadership last week in Deline, the elders spoke strong about our culture. That’s something that’s ingrained in us. I’m looking for the Minister’s department to put infrastructure and culture in our communities.
The last point I want to talk about is the employment. When you look in the Sahtu, you look at the five communities, you look at Norman Wells having the lowest unemployment rate in the Northwest Territories, 4 percent. Unheard of. But when you look at the communities of Deline, Tulita, Colville Lake and Good Hope, our employment rate is only at 40 percent. It’s only 40 percent of our people working there. Why is that? It’s because there’s an industry in Norman Wells that’s working. In our small communities our industry is government contracts – when they’re there – it’s short term, it’s seasonal, but there’s no economy. When we have a high population of young people who are graduating from school, it’s high. Mr. Minister, you went to our grad last year. You were in Fort Good Hope. Like I said in one of my meetings, that one of our Grade 12s, she finished Grade 12 last year and you know what she’s doing this year in Tulita? She’s a custodian janitor
because she can’t find work. You know, that tells me something. Even though she’s in Grade 12, she’s doing anything and everything to do to get her work, to find a job. We’ve got to do better than that. The employment rate for us needs to be improved in the Sahtu. People want to work. That’s what I was told last week. We want work. We want to get off government dependency. I’ve got to set my people free.