Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I want to ask Mr. Ramsay about the goal of attracting workers to at least 2,000 over the next five years, according to the budget address by the Minister of Finance. As Minister of ITI, what plans does he have in place, with regard to working with other department officials, to attract workers into the Northwest Territories?
Yesterday we watched a short video of the people up in Yellowknife, Norman Wells. Shotagotine people and life on the land. We also saw a clip in 1957 where there was oil being worked on in Norman Wells. Any kind of economic development attracted workers to come to the Northwest Territories. Do they come for the economic reasons, the cultural reasons or the social reasons? What types of plans are in place to attract workers to stay in the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Similar to my response to Mrs. Groenewegen earlier, the government has the Come Make Your Mark Campaign. We work with over 60 organizations and businesses around the Northwest Territories in an effort to attract people to live and work in the Northwest Territories.
I mentioned this previously, and I’ll mention it again, we are only going to get somewhere if we continue to partner with industry, to partner with communities, to see to it that we put our best effort to attract folks to live and work in the Northwest Territories. We believe we are on the verge of some very exciting economic prospects here in the Northwest Territories. We certainly want to put in our best effort in trying to attract people to live and work in the NWT. Thank you.
Is there some type of think-tank that his department is considering to attract or bring in people and keep people in the North here? I want to ask, is there any type of think-tank that will look at all kind of options, how we keep people and attract people back who have left?
We have the Employment and Economic Development Subcommittee of Cabinet. Certainly, the discussion has started here. We have reached out to the mining companies who do work here in the Northwest Territories, to engage them preliminarily. We will have a working group as we go forward. We also want to hear from Regular Members. You will hear us talk, as a government, much more as an initiative to get these 2,000 people here over the next five years. We will reach out to Regular Members over the coming months to try to engage them and get their feedback on how they think we can deliver on that effort to get 2,000 people to come to the Northwest Territories over the next five years. Thank you.
In my hands here, I have the stats from the students who are going to Aurora College from the Sahtu. The numbers shown here are 81 people who have taken some sort of post-secondary education. How do we track these 81 people? Some of them have left the North and there are reasons why they left the North. I have a young man in Vancouver who is a classical cartoonist who has a hard time finding work in the Northwest Territories. The only places he will find work is California, Montreal. There is no way that our government will attract that career, so he has to be in Vancouver. That’s where the hot market is.
I want to ask Mr. Ramsay, is he and his department, subcommittee, going into Aurora College and asking them what do we need to do to keep you here rather than going down south to finish your education and work down there and not come back? What type of attractions do we need to have to keep you here in the North?
We have to get folks back here to the Northwest Territories. Certainly in travels even to a place like Vancouver where we launched Aurora Capital of the World campaign months ago, I ran into a couple of young people who had left the Northwest Territories and were working in Vancouver. We need to try to get these young folks back to the Northwest Territories. I think all Members can help in that effort. If you know of young people in the South and try to connect them to opportunities here in the Northwest Territories, that’s something all of us should be doing.
Also, work continues on getting these statistics together through the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We understand the Member is concerned. We share his concern and certainly we have to help connect the opportunities for our students we have at post-secondary in the South to opportunities here in the North. We fully intend to do that, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has his department or any of his colleagues done a survey as to why people are leaving the Northwest Territories? Is it the high cost of living? Is it the infrastructure? Is it programs and services? Once you get that survey looked at, then you can see the problems and solutions. If it is the high cost of living, then you know we have to do some work. Is it child care? Is it training? Whatever it is, then we can unravel the issue.
Has the department done some type of survey on why people are exiting out of the Northwest Territories?
Over the past several years, there have been surveys through industry. I know some of the mining companies have done surveys of mine employees. Some of that work has been done, but it’s a variety of different reasons. Not each reason is the same for each individual’s circumstances. We could try to get some of that information collected on survey results that have happened. I can’t speak for the Minister of Human Resources, but perhaps there has been some work done through Human Resources, I’m not sure. We’ll have to look at compiling some of that information for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
