Finance committee  To clarify, Yukon College has been eligible for NSERC and SSHRC, for a number of years, and we currently have multi-million of dollars' worth of research grants operating in the north. We are the principle investigators and the money stays in the north. One of the real advantages of that is that every summer, we offer about 50 students who from the north and who are studying in southern universities the opportunity to come north and spend the summer doing research through those granting opportunities.

Finance committee  We haven't had discussions with the ministers, but I have been in Ottawa twice over the last few months and met with a number of the different departments, including Indigenous and Northern Affairs, ESDC and CanNor on a couple of occasions. Certainly, we meet regularly with the tri-councils, which are the three granting councils, because we are recipients of a number of research grants in the north at Yukon College and we want to make sure that this continues at the university.

Finance committee  I just want to add that we have been watching Dechinta's work and the really wonderful groundbreaking things they're doing. I would also add that Yukon College recently received a very significant grant of $5 million from the Mastercard Foundation. With that money, we are working on building all sorts of different kinds of strategies related to making sure there are more indigenous students going through post-secondary.

Finance committee  Perhaps I can speak a bit about the Yukon. I don't have exact figures, but I do know that the Yukon government spends about $4 million a year on what's called the Yukon grant, much of which goes to students who are studying in the south. There is no return requirement for them to come back north, so many of those students stay in the south after finishing their degrees.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. I want to open by acknowledging that we are convening on the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta'an Kwäch'än Council. I'd like to thank the committee members for coming to Whitehorse to hear our story and the stories of all Yukoners as you help to construct the next federal budget.

Foreign Affairs committee  Adaptation can mean many things. We have contaminants that are emerging from the soils as permafrost disappears. Those contaminants are getting into our food sources. They're affecting people's health. We have very high incidences of certain diseases and cancers because of that.

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't have much of a comment. Kyoto was signed before I moved north, so it wasn't on my radar. We see contaminants in the north more directly than you do in the south. Certainly it has an immediate impact here. From a personal perspective, we face energy issues every day. We just came out of a stretch of minus 30 for three weeks.

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you.

Foreign Affairs committee  Unfortunately, we had our student awards that night, which I always feel is very important to attend. We did send our vice-president of research and academics. Dr. Chris Hawkins did attend the meetings. I think we have attended almost all of the rectors' meeting. That was a rectors' meeting, which includes all of the presidents and vice-presidents of all the participating universities and colleges.

Foreign Affairs committee  I've never said that it wasn't important. What I said was that with limited resources I would prefer to build our colleges to provide better and more options for students in the north. However, what I've always said is that the value of UArctic is the network of professionals and academics across the circumpolar north, and I still support that strongly.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would say that it's not an either/or situation. To me, the value of the University of the Arctic is that it does connect the learning and research that is happening across the north. That informs the Arctic Council, where parliamentarians can have the discussions that need to happen.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's correct. We have articulation agreements with southern universities that students can go into for sciences and engineering, and we're building an articulation with the university mining school in Fairbanks.

Foreign Affairs committee  As I said at the beginning of my presentation, everything begins and ends with education. To me, the Arctic Council is about providing a forum for us to learn what others in the north have learned ahead of us. Whether there are good, sustainable practices that we can learn from in the north to inform our domestic policy—that's where I see the value of the Arctic Council.

Foreign Affairs committee  To answer the first part of your question, we are seeing the uptake increasing rapidly. I think you would be very impressed to come into our communities in the Yukon and see how many of the young people are going on and completing degrees and post-graduate degrees. And many of them are returning.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.