Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m taking the opportunity today to go down memory lane, like my colleague Mr. Miltenberger, who often talks about history.
Back in 1992, while I was taking my business degree in finance at the University of Lethbridge, I had the opportunity one summer to get a position as the economic development officer trainee, before I completed my last year of university. I returned to Hay River, became the economic development officer there, and since then purchased a home in Hay River and have lived here in the Northwest Territories since then. I think this is one of the draws that kept me in the North and kept me as a productive Northerner.
As students return from universities and colleges this summer, often the issue of employment comes up, whether it’s summer employment or some of them who are completing their education are looking for permanent employment. This government knows these students. We have financial assistance programs for them. We should be linking something to the students we know we have out there to the current jobs and what the government is looking for.
We have an aging population. We know there are going to be demands in the future of how many employees we’re going to need. The government is one of the major employers in the Northwest Territories, so we should have a direct link to those students when they first start their education, to what the opportunities are there, what the opportunities are for employment. We need to link that, because we are seeing in our riding, as well as hearing stories throughout the North, where there are students coming back and they don’t have a job. They could be lawyers. They could be doctors, teachers. We have teachers who are Northerners but don’t have any full-time employment. We’ve had a lawyer, recently, looking for a job in the Northwest Territories. Couldn’t get a job in the Northwest Territories; finally she was able to line one up.
Whether you’re a teacher, lawyer, welder, mechanic, we should be supporting our youth and getting them jobs, and linking our education system with the human resource commitment to the Northwest Territories government.
I will have questions for the Minister of Human Resources on how we can create this kind of a link between the Northerners who we’ve given financing, and finding them jobs out there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
