Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm all about return on investment. I think that we should be putting our dollars into places where we have significant amount of investments.
In regards to the dollars that we did invest in the diamond mine relief, we end up with over $2 billion in annual exports, a thousand jobs for Northerners, joint northern spend of almost $900 million and $69 million in tax revenues annually to the GNWT. So I feel like that's a pretty darn good investment. That being said, I do agree that we do need to have education because education does last forever, unlike our diamond mines, which we do know.
In regards to the diamond mines, they all employ apprentices, and all of the companies that contract with them, a significant number of them, employ apprentices. They're doing workforce development. The Indigenous development corporations also have workforce development plans and are working on exactly what the Member is talking about. And without the dollars from the diamond mines, they can't sustain that. They're also working on social programming, they're working on housing developments. And so, really, this is more than just supporting diamond mines. This is supporting Northerners. This is supporting Indigenous businesses, and this is in support of our future economic development as well. Thank you.