Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to talk about population growth today. Mr. Speaker, as I talk to employers, they talk about their struggles of getting anyone to work. I had a great conversation the other day with the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, and they are fearful about what's actually happening with the nominee program because their membership, including our community at large, is struggling to find people to fill jobs. They don't care where they've come from, Mr. Speaker; we're dying to have anybody here with a pulse in these jobs to do these jobs, Mr. Speaker, because we're struggling.

We all talk daily here with the proverbial challenges of lack of nurses, lack of doctors, and lack of teachers. But we cannot let it go unforgotten that we have people such as the construction workers, the landscapers, and even the restauranteurs who are struggling filling positions. Now with the nominee program being pulled from the carpet of business, and our population is fearing what will happen next. Mr. Speaker, we cannot let this upcoming nominee program create chance as their business model for success.

Mr. Speaker, at the same time, the GNWT cannot be the singular salvation to our population growth by saying, in other words, GNWT jobs will bring them here. Well, as fact, it doesn't. We need a new strategy. Population growth is a barrier to our success. In other words, it isn't being done. It's the wall that we can't seem to get past.

Now, the GNWT is number one in a few areas. Allow me to remind this House. Well, our power bills are probably number one, and if not, number 2. Our unemployment, well, again, in the range of number one as in worst. What more factors of disaster flags do we need to raise? We need action on getting population here in the Northwest Territories.

I don't know what it will take to wake this government up from its sleepy slumber of saying if we don't have people, we can't fill the jobs. If we can't have jobs, we can't have growth, etcetera, etcetera. It's a vicious circle, Mr. Speaker.

Population growth will underpin our success. We're seeing the struggles here in Yellowknife. I can only imagine the struggles in the regions and in the communities. You know, often, we forget that the importance of the sustainable population growth will be key to our federal grant. So if we have people here, we'll get a federal grant. We have people here working, we have taxation. We have people who happy and doing things. Mr. Speaker, we can only sell our fresh drinkable water so long. We need a strategy that puts them on the hook, reels them in, brings them here. Whether they come from Alberta, they come from Nova Scotia, whether they come from the States, because they're probably looking for places to go there, or they come from overseas, whether it's Europe or Africa or Asia, I don't care. We need good people to bring their families here, and we need a strategy from this government.

Mr. Speaker, this territory is in dire need. We need people now more than ever. We need contributors who will help the North and its fabric grow strong, and I intend to push harder for this because we need them now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.