Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past four years

, it’s been an interesting job, but

in some ways it’s been frustrating. Our government sometimes has flaws in it. We see that through some of the constituents who we have. A lot of these constituents are low income or students.

One of the examples that I’m going to talk about today is we have some students who have grown up in the Northwest Territories, lived here all their life, went from kindergarten to Grade 12, after Grade 12 moved on, decided they were going to go somewhere else, to some other jurisdiction for a year or two, and now want to come back and get education here in the Northwest Territories. But now our government says no, you’re not a resident of the Northwest Territories anymore. That credit that you had for student financial assistance, y

ou’re

not eligible for that for another year, once you become a resident again. For one whole year. These are Northerners. A lot of these students’ parents still live here.

We are trying to promote the Northwest Territories, get more people to live here, get our students to come back, and our government has a stringent rule on this residency issue.

I’ve heard many scenarios from other colleagues about people leaving for a short period of time

– a

year

– and losing a whole bunch of their benefits

like that. Our government needs to be flexible and responsible to the public of the Northwest Territories.

I will have questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment how we change this residency for northern students and these Northerners to come back, get education, better their lives and make the Northwest Territories a better place. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.