Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I'd like to talk about the Skills for Success Initiative whose focus is to improve employment success for NWT residents, close skill gaps for in-demand jobs and respond to employer needs. This initiative is driven by labour market evidence, best practice research and information, and stakeholder input and feedback. Just with that last little statement there, that leads to this last couple days where there is actually a symposium going on as we speak.

We have territorial, Aboriginal and municipal governments, education and training partners, industry, business, NGOs, students and apprentices all meeting and finding out how we can create an action plan to increase the employment in the Northwest Territories, as well as the training and education for residents to take these jobs when the economy picks back up in some of the areas.

Actually, I've had the opportunity to speak with some participants over the last couple of days who are attending this forum. Especially after yesterday, the first forum, everyone is saying it's a really good symposium with a lot of good information and some very strong statements from our own Minister and our leaders within the communities and within government. However, when we get into those discussions, we have to talk about the realities. It's all good and fine to say things are going to be good in a symposium or a conference, but we've got to look at the realities of what's actually out there throughout the Northwest Territories in our regions, in our communities.

I just wanted to highlight some of the discussions that I've had. We continue to have high unemployment rates, especially in the small communities. We have a slow economy and it's not only in the Northwest Territories, it's across Canada and globally. So, we have other jurisdictions who are looking to get some of the jobs up here, while our own residents need the training to fill those positions.

Housing was brought up as an issue for some organizations, and I had a good discussion with some members from back home saying we have jobs and we can't fill them because we can't house them. In Inuvik you can buy a house because the economy is so slow, but housing is an issue as well as looking at office space. As stated and addressed in the 2014 NWT survey of mining employees, one of the big barriers that is affecting us right now is the high cost of living.

I will have questions for the appropriate Ministers when I get the opportunity later. Thank you.