Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government has tasked itself with fortifying our resource sector and diversifying our economy. These two goals require different approaches. However, to be successful at either it is essential that we have a well-trained workforce. The same way this Assembly is committed to supporting the physical infrastructure needed to grow the economy, we need to equally support the workforce development. If we spend hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure to attract new mining operations and don't have the skilled workforce to staff them, hundreds of millions more in wages will flow out of the territory, as has been the case for the past 20 years. In my experience working in industry and as an MLA, I've encountered many issues that hinder our ability to train, certify, and retain Northern residents.
A major roadblock to apprenticing in Hay River, and I'm sure every other small community, is the lack of journeymen. I recently dealt with a constituent who wanted to begin offering apprenticeships to his employees. The problem was that in that particular trade there are only four journeymen in the entire territory, and none were available. This is a problem with more common trades as well. I've worked with people who have seven years of carpentry experience, but have never had the opportunity to be apprenticed. We have a small population spread out over a huge area, so these are the kind of problems that we run into. Because of this reality, we need to innovate made-in-the-north solutions to these problems.
A creative suggestion that I've received from some small- and medium-sized employers is to create a program where journeymen apprentice employees at different locations, different companies. Some businesses don't need or can't afford a fulltime carpenter, but they do enough carpentry work that their employees gain significant experience. A journeyman could spend time at different locations verifying the amount and quality of work and signing off on hours. If it was a government-run program, they could utilize current employees, making it very cost effective. I understand there also used to be a program where the government would take on an apprentice with the sole purpose of giving that person the opportunity to become a journeyman. Once he or she received their ticket their tenure ended. The value added to the economy by having a skilled worker who is more employable, higher paid and who can apprentice future workers far outweighs the minimal costs of this program.
These are just a couple examples of the kind of programs we need to be looking into to build a workforce for the future. I've worked with Minister Moses on apprenticeship issues and I know he sees the importance of them, so I'm optimistic that this Assembly will see some much-needed and impactful changes to our apprenticeship programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
