Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, something I am perhaps most passionate about is the development of the Northwest Territories' knowledge economy. I have called for the evolution of Aurora College into a fully realized polytechnic institute. I have advocated for enhancing funding for Dechinta Bush University, and supported legislation to allow made-in-the-North academic degrees.
Mr. Speaker, although the success of our economy has always relied on resource industries, it is time to focus on building a resilient economy that capitalizes on the incredible talents of Northerners. I am talking about a real knowledge economy built on northern innovation and supported by this government as a way to deliver inclusive and sustainable long-term growth.
Mr. Speaker, the Federal Advisory Council on Economic Growth issued the second Path to Prosperity report on February 6th of this year. The report's recommendations are focused on unleashing Canada's economic potential by innovating our current economic paradigm to drive growth through creating a highly skilled Canadian workforce for the jobs of tomorrow. This is the kind of real change that Canadians and our North needs now more than ever to address a troubling trend that is also evident in this report. Up to 40 per cent of the current Canadian workforce will quite possibly become obsolete due to increasing automation within the next 10 years.
Instead of putting their heads into the ground to hide from this inevitability, the advisory council has a solution: to build a highly skilled and resilient workforce. The anchor of this solution to the major structural changes on the horizon is the creation of a future skills lab, a non-profit and non-political body designed to encourage and enable next-generation skills. It would invite all levels of government, private sector organizations, labour unions, and other interested parties to partner on an opt-in basis that would co-finance innovative pilot programs, skills, and competency development that address identified labour gaps.
Mr. Speaker, I truly believe we should take similar actions to unlock innovation within our future generation of Northerners, whether that means restructuring our current publicly funded institutions or taking into account prior suggestions I have put forward on the creation of new ones. We simply cannot afford not to act. The jobs of the future are out there, Mr. Speaker, and it is time that we started encouraging innovation in the northern work force so we won't be left in the cold when the shift comes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.