Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to reiterate that, you know, in the South Slave I'm very proud that my community is a leader in education, and education is extremely important to the South Slave. And a couple of things that I want to talk about today is, you know, I always -- when we're always talking in AOC or other places about the small communities, we used to have a leadership program that was run by -- in Fort Smith, where they had an extra teacher and they had house parents, and it was only based only for the small communities. Very successful.

We got lawyers out of there from the Tlicho. You know, I know that the former Commissioner's daughter was one of the people that was in that program. There was a lot of success with that program. And everybody -- a lot of those people that were in those programs, including the now grand chief of the Gwich'in, they all went through this leadership program. And a lot of the -- I'm just wondering if the Minister would consider, you know -- I know it's late in our mandate but education is probably one of the most important things that you could give a child, not only as family but as a government. And we have to think about that again to ensure that the small communities that we have, you know, children that go there and they have house parents, they have their meals there, and they have programs that are extra, they have tutors at night, they have a teacher at night on staff, and we start mentoring some of those leaders -- the future leaders of the small communities.

And some of those future leaders were also -- that went through those programs became Premier, became Ministers, became MPs. I think that's extremely important that we start looking at that whole concept again.

The other concept that I really want to talk about is the Phoenix program. The Phoenix program in Fort Smith has got to be expanded to the small communities because I think that -- I know that the teachers in Fort Smith are very dedicated to this Phoenix program. And in the last few years, the Governor General medals were granted to students who took the Phoenix program. It wasn't the people that all graduated from grade 12 but it was people that were from the Phoenix program. And I'm very proud to say that, you know, when students go back to school and achieve that, the Governor General's award from the high school, it's a big feather in their hat. And I'd like to see that expanded to other schools. I think it's extremely important.

I consider Fort Smith a leader with the education system, and we're the education capital of the Northwest Territories. I've always said that. And education is the one thing that all of us want to push on our children no matter where they are. Whether they're from -- we've had people even from -- like, a lot from the smaller communities and from the larger centres that come to Fort Smith, and we really appreciate when they come. Thank you, Madam Chair.