Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we return to the Assembly for this first sitting of a brand new year, I am inspired to look forward to a brighter future for the Northwest Territories after such a challenging year. One of the bright pieces, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, is the promise of better education for all. When I look at the issues surrounding our territory, I see that the solution is already in front of us: our people.
If we can create a workforce born in the North, raised in the North, and educated in the North, nothing will stop us from creating solutions to our problems that are practical and attainable, northern solutions created by northern people.
However, so much needs to be done before an NWT student ever steps foot in a post-secondary institution. We need to address how we support our children and our families first. We need to ensure that people have enough food to eat and adequate shelter before we ever hope to educate them. We need to stop punishing people for poverty, calling it neglect and taking their children away. We need to ensure any student graduating with a Northwest Territories diploma can apply to any school they want and not be sent back for upgrading first.
In the North, a lot of money and opportunity is lost to the South due to the education and experience required in key industries that are needed for northern operations. Currently, much of the northern-based industry relies on a southern-educated workforce. Often, these Southerners return home to rejoin their families, taking their pension and their nest eggs with them. Currently, we tend to aim very low for our people when it comes to participation in the economic sector, regulating them to secondary roles or manual labour.
By educating resident Northerners in key northern industries as well as in social and health services, we are less likely to have such a transient population as the requirement for southern recruitment will decline. It is this requirement that leads to such a high turnover of staff within departments, causing numerous disruptions to the level of service provided to residents as well as additional costs from an HR perspective.
I'm very excited about the prospect of a uniquely northern university in the NWT. There is a lot of work to be done, including the proper engagement of all stakeholders as well as breaking down the barriers for northern students. I look forward to the day when my engineering colleagues can provide co-op programs to local techs and our children can be educated by teachers who grew up not only in the classroom but also on the land. Thank you.