Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for consensus government to work, each Minister must have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and be a strong enough leader to turn that vision into reality. In a party system, Ministers have party members and political staff to help them develop a vision and associated policy. However, in our system, the Ministers' only support staff is the bureaucracy, which is not designed nor mandated to make the bold political decisions that are sometimes necessary. I am concerned that, in the absence of a bold vision, we will squander the opportunity to capitalize on what has potential to be the defining issue of this Assembly, the renewal of our post-secondary education system.
Now, it's easy for Regular Members to stand up here and say what we would do if we were Ministers, so that is what I am going to do. If I were the Minister of Education, this is some of what I would have said on the first day of this sitting.
Mr. Speaker, the report on the Aurora College foundational review has exposed this government's failure to provide adequate post-secondary education in the NWT. I take full responsibility and apologize to all of the college's students, teachers, and administrators for not providing them with a system in which they could all flourish. That being said, this is an exciting time because the review has given us a golden opportunity to start anew and begin to develop a world-class post-secondary education system. We will need help, so we are currently recruiting an associate deputy minister to assist us.
However, Mr. Speaker, make no mistake, this person will be there to turn our vision into reality, not to tell us what our vision is. We are already aware of all the many educational needs that we must work to address and the many strengths we can build on. We know that we have many high school graduates who must be better prepared for post-secondary, so we will redouble our efforts in the JK-12 system. At the same time, we will mobilize our network of community learning centres to ensure that upgrading and expanded training opportunities are accessible to everyone. We will make use of our territory's natural advantages. We will strive to turn Inuvik into a world-renowned centre for Arctic research and capitalize on its satellite and fibre optic infrastructure. We will work with industry to ensure Northerners have the right training to benefit from resource extraction. We will restore the lustre of the college's renewable resources program so it once again becomes one of the top in Canada. We will turn our trades program into one that attracts students from across Canada, and we will ensure that we support our residents who want to help the territory by becoming teachers, social workers, nurses, and other essential professionals.
Mr. Speaker, we will do all of this more, and I look forward to working with my colleagues and the residents of the territory to fully develop our vision. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.