Debates of February 20, 2014 (day 15)
MEMBER’S STATEMENT ON POSITIONS FOR RETURNING STUDENTS
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Dolynny did a great speech.
I believe, as well, that we need to increase our population with our students, the students who are out at post-secondary education.
In 1993 I returned back to the Northwest Territories after finishing my degree and I had a guaranteed job to come back to in the Northwest Territories. I have stayed here since then, but colleagues I went to school with had an opportunity to stay in the South and some of them have never come back.
We need to find jobs for our students who are coming back from post-secondary education. We need to find and set up interim positions for them, knowing when they are going into their last year of education that they will have a job coming back. That will draw them to come back to the Northwest Territories, find spouses and start to increase the population of the Northwest Territories.
---Laughter
Mr. Speaker, we need to support these students. We need to find them jobs. As we know, a lot of the vacant positions we’ve talked about over the last two weeks need skilled individuals like these students that we have. These students need our assistance.
As my colleague talked about, other jurisdictions are doing this. They are supporting them financially. We know that financially we are getting somewhere around $25,000 per person, that comes to the Northwest Territories and stays here, through our federal funding agreement. So we need our students to come back and stay in the NWT. It’s easy to draw them because they know how great it is here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard, and good luck.
---Laughter
The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.