Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories has a strategy for growth. We know that to develop our economy, create growth for our communities, and enhance our society, we need to attract new people to make their homes here in our great territory. We need more skilled professionals and tradespeople who want to set down roots, build their homes and businesses, and create opportunity and wealth in the Northwest Territories, and as we know, the more we build our own population, the better the balance of federal transfer payments to support our programs, services, infrastructure, and overall capacity as a territory. In the mandate that we adopted earlier this session, we agreed to “increase the number of immigrants working in the NWT and increase investment by immigrants by implementing an immigration strategy that prioritizes streamlining application processes, increasing awareness of immigration programs, and consolidating our administrative support.” We need a made-in-the-North immigration policy. We need to be able to attract the specific skills and talents that will build our Northern economy in the 21st century. The North has a long history of immigration. Newcomers made essential contributions to the fur, mining, and transportation industry. More recently, immigrants have supported our small business sector and secondary diamond industry.
Every year, we celebrate as a group of permanent residents join us as Canadian citizens. We need to ensure that immigrants feel like they can live here. We need to identify specific actions to fulfil our mandate in the area of immigration, and measure our success. We need to ensure that the process for establishing a business is clear and that we’re connecting skilled individuals to new and existing opportunities. We need to identify barriers for new Canadians and do the hard work required to remove those barriers. We need to work with our federal counterparts to clear the hurdles to residency status, health care, and other important services. An immigration strategy is an exciting opportunity for the Northwest Territories, both for immigrants themselves and the communities where they will make their new homes. At the appropriate time, I will have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
