Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 24th, 2009

[Chris West, President, Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce]

Mr. Chair, standing committee members, panel members, good day, and thank you for coming to Nunavut and allowing us the opportunity to make this presentation.

I understand that our opening comments are too brief to allow more time for questions and answers, so I will limit my initial comments to three specific areas, though we would be happy to talk endlessly about how the federal government could take a greater role in economic development in our regions.

CanNor was an important set-up in better serving and understanding the needs of the north. The selection of Iqaluit for the location of the headquarters could not have been a better decision, and not just because we felt Nunavut was due for such a decision. The main reason we are happy is that most of the new CanNor positions will be staffed by existing INAC-Nunavut regional office staff. They have demonstrated a strong commitment, and more importantly a strong knowledge about what is needed in Nunavut and the north.

We hope that as CanNor moves forward even more programs that impact the north are moved from departments across the federal government to this new agency. We also hope that the agency will continue to receive the support of the government in the south and be given the authority to make decisions in the north by people who understand the reality of the regions we live in.

That said, we also hope that other departments across the federal system understand the importance of CanNor and make full use of the agency's full resources and knowledge. Too often we hear of programs and initiatives that are not as successful as they could have been because the right northern organizations and federal agencies were not involved. If a federal department has an initiative that involves the north, their first call should be to CanNor so they can help ensure that their initiative is a success. A case in point, unfortunately, is this consultation.

It is unfortunate that the INAC national regional office was not consulted from the beginning as to who to invite for this series of presentations. Many organizations did not hear of this opportunity until fairly late in the process and lost valuable preparation plus consultation time. In fact, INAC and NRO heard about this standing committee from one of the invited participants. Hopefully, there are no organizations conspicuous by their absence during these presentations.

Northern infrastructure... Canada went through a nation-building exercise when it developed the transportation infrastructure across all of the southern provinces. Railways, roads, ports, and other infrastructure were built to connect Canada from coast to coast. Now that northern sovereignty has become a catchphrase, people talk about Canada from coast to coast to coast and it is incumbent upon the federal government to develop the same infrastructure to the last coast.

Our needs are the greatest and our infrastructure is the least. No community in Nunavut is connected to any other community in Canada by either rail or road. There is no commercial port in Nunavut that can serve the needs of Nunavummiut. Many of our airports require substantial investments. These are all vital to future economic development in the region, and we need your support to help ensure that Nunavut and the north are treated fairly, as the rest of Canada was treated.

Please consider the following. Imagine if all of the road and rail systems heading to the west in Canada stopped at the western edge of Alberta. Would British Columbia still be a part of Canada? Would Canada be as prosperous without that connection and B.C.'s commitment to the rest of Canada? We would doubt it.

Nunavut is the land of opportunity, and as the future unfolds, the vast riches that lie within our borders will become more and more important to Canada and the rest of the world. This is only one of the reasons to invest in Nunavut. The other reason is one of fairness.

Canada invested in connecting the rest of Canada to each other, now they need to do the same for the north. To use a phrase used previously by the federal government when referring to northern sovereignty, much to the disdain of the Inuit in particular, “invest in it or lose it”.

Thanks again for taking the time to be here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. West.

We'll now move to Mr. Vandermeulen. Mr. Vandermeulen's presentation is from the Arctic College.

Please go ahead with your presentation.

[Daniel Vandermeulen, President, Nunavut Arctic College]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and standing committee members. Thanks for inviting me.

I want to take this time to present to you some adult learning statistics from the census of 2006 and talk about how they can be seen as both barriers and solutions to economic development.

The underlying strength and promise of the Canadian economy is evident even in the midst of this downturn. This is also true of Nunavut.

Nunavut's construction and transportation sectors remain relatively strong, and as the economy recovers, mining will also recover along with it. However, Inuit Nunavummiut will not benefit from the recovery to the same degree as non-aboriginal Canadians, both in Nunavut and in the rest of Canada. In large part, this is due to differences in educational attainment, as reported in the 2006 census.

I provided speaking notes when I came to register, so I won't go through the table, but you'll see in the table some key elements.

If we look at Inuit Nunavummiut as compared to non-aboriginal Canadians, within the Inuit Nunavummiut, 60% are without high school graduation compared to the rest Canada at only 15%. When it comes to trades, the comparison is much closer. About 10% have some trade certificate compared to the rest of Canada at about 12%. When it comes to college, a career certificate or diploma, again, it's quite close with 18% in Nunavut and 20% in the rest of Canada. When we get to university we get back to a very large disparity. Only about 4% of Inuit Nunavummiut have any amount of university compared to the rest of Canada at 28%.

We're reasonably close in things like trades qualifications and college career-preparation qualifications. Where there's a very acute gap is the 60% of Nunavummiut aged 25 to 64, the age group that comes out in the 2006 census, without a high school diploma, as compared to 15% for the rest of Canada. There is only 4% with some university as opposed to 28% for the rest of Canada.

When you look at the table when it's distributed to you, with the employment rates, the unemployment rates, and the average earnings, you'll see that that's reflected there. For instance, there is an unemployment rate amongst Inuit Nunavummiut of 19%, with the rest of Canada at 5%. These are 2006 figures.

With that as your background, I just want to comment very briefly on some successes and then move on to challenges.

In fact, Nunavut has a number of very impressive successes. Nunavut Arctic College was established as a separate post-secondary institution in Nunavut about 15 years ago. We deliver adult learning and training programs through three regional campuses in Iqaluit, Rankin Inlet, and Cambridge Bay, and we have community learning centres, sometimes just a rented classroom, in every one of Nunavut's communities. We have a great deal of scope now. That's a very important element.

In terms of developing a skilled workforce, we have a lot of partnerships with southern universities. We've been offering a B.Ed. in elementary education since 1986, and currently with the University of Regina. We have a B.Sc. in Arctic nursing, in partnership with Dalhousie. A full law degree was offered from 2001 to 2005 in partnership with the University of Victoria, and another one is being planned in partnership with the University of Ottawa. We're doing pretty well on that front.

We've also had really good partnership, particularly with the Department of Health and Social Services of the Nunavut government, in developing Nunavummiut for employment in the health sector. With their support, we've offered several programs: nursing, midwifery, maternity care, home care, continuing care, mental health, human services, and community therapy assistance. In fact, recently we graduated the first two Inuit midwives, fully registered to Canadian standards, in the last couple of weeks.

On the trades front, and largely again as a result of a partnership with the Nunavut Housing Trust, we've offered community-based pre-trades training in virtually every community at least once, and produced a significant number of people ready for apprenticeship.

On the front of trades, the Government of Nunavut is making significant investments. The trades training centre will open in 2010 in Rankin Inlet, and it will enable us to offer oil burner mechanic and housing maintainer, which are two trades particular to the north, and also electrician and plumber. And we've recently doubled the capacity of our carpentry training program here in Iqaluit.

We've started planning the mine training centre in Cambridge Bay. When it's finished, we'll be able to offer millwright and welding. We've already started thinking about phase two of the trades training centre, which will help us produce heavy equipment operators and heavy duty and auto mechanics.

So we have a lot of successes behind us. We've done well. But we're still facing some significant challenges. You'll notice, if you look at the statistics, that we've done best at the trades level and the career preparation of college, and where we do offer university, it's always in professional education. It's occupationally focused. That's because almost all of the dollars that come to us have that particular focus to them. If construction industries are booming, invest in carpenters. If mining starts taking off, invest in mine workers. If we need more teachers, invest in teachers. If we need more nurses, invest in nurses.

What we are lacking, and I go back to sort of the bookends of that 60% of Inuit Nunavummiut without a high school diploma and only 4% with some university, is funding for what I call general capacity building. That is not necessarily career or professional occupationally focused.

We need more money simply to enable adult Nunavummiut--and again I'm talking about the age group 25 to 64--to basically return to school. The reasons for the imbalance are historical, everything from the residential school system to lack of funding, to the late development of the eastern Arctic. On the high school end we have a major need. And given territorial fiscal capacities, I think the only government with the fiscal capacity to address that is the federal government.

On the other end of the book case, I call it my other bookend, is university. I would call on the Government of Canada to support building university capacity in the north by endorsing and funding the Jago report on the University of the Arctic in Canada. I'm sure you've heard about this already from both Yukon College and Aurora College during your stops.

The Jago report was commissioned by INAC to investigate sustainable university capacity in the north and how to fund it. Their recommendation was $2.5 million a year for five years, to give us predictability, and also some matching dollars. So I come back to it. Until we have that kind of funding, the major lack of high school diplomas in a workforce where increasingly employers are seeking high school certification or equivalency is a major barrier to economic development.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Vandermeulen. Sorry to be rushing you, but we're getting to the edge of our time allotment.

Now we'd like to welcome Nicole Sikma. I'm glad you could join us. Nicole is a Director with Arctic Co-operatives Limited. We also have Mr. Stéphane Daigle.

One of you is going to be presenting. Ms. Sikma?

[Nicole Sikma, Member, Board of Directors, Arctic Co-operatives Limited]

I can do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Go ahead with your presentation.

[Nicole Sikma]

[Witness speaks in native language]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure for me to be here tonight representing the cooperative system in the Canadian Arctic.

My name is Nicole Sikma. I'm a member of the board of directors of Arctic Co-operatives Limited, the central service federation of co-ops of the Arctic. I offer the regrets of our chief executive officer, Andy Morrison. He had planned to be here today but was unable to make it because bad weather forced his flight to turn back.

This year, 2009, is a milestone for the co-ops in the Arctic. We are marking the 50th anniversary of the first Arctic co-op to be owned and controlled by the local community. Today, 31 locally owned co-ops provide a wide range of services, including retail stores, hotels, restaurants, fuel distribution, cable television, marketing, property development, and property retail or rental.

The 31 community co-ops in the north and their two service federations are owned by more than 20,000 individual owner members across Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. Last year, local co-ops returned more than $8 million in patronage refunds to the individual co-op members across the north. Local co-ops employ 1,000 people in full-time and part-time positions.

In 2008, co-ops invested more than $22 million in communities through wages and benefits paid to the employees. In the short time available to us this evening, we would like to highlight three important barriers to northern economic development and offer brief comments on how to address these barriers.

These barriers are capacity building, Government of Canada procurement, and utility rates. Capacity building: We believe that one of the most important barriers to economic development in the Arctic is the education and training of aboriginal people. It is essential that we direct, manage, and operate all parts of our economy. Unfortunately, we have a shortage of leaders, managers, and employees to manage our own affairs on a sustainable basis. Short-term solutions and quick fixes are not the answer. People development is a priority, with a focus on developing human resources today to meet the long-term challenges and opportunities of tomorrow. The Government of Canada must devote additional resources to human resources development and, in the process, eliminate the bureaucracy and red tape associated with these programs.

Government of Canada procurement: The Government of Canada, through Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, has a procurement strategy for the aboriginal businesses. According to published information, the strategy is designed to increase aboriginal business participation in supplying government procurement requirements through a program, mandatory and selective set-asides, and supplier development activities, leading to increased representation of aboriginal business and contract awards by individual departments and agencies. This program is a great idea and it could have a very positive impact on aboriginal businesses. Unfortunately, the program provides only guidelines to various departments.

Departments are not required to follow the policy. In fact, INAC, the department responsible for the program, does not adhere to the policy. Government must recognize the positive impact its spending can have on community economic development, job creation, skills development, infrastructure development, and wealth creation to help develop and sustain communities long after the government project or program is completed.

Very simply, the benefits of government spending to the aboriginal people and their communities could be greatly enhanced if government enforced its procurement strategies for aboriginal businesses.

There is the cost of utilities. The cost of living in the Arctic is extreme and one of the major reasons is the cost of electricity. Our small communities are highly dependent on diesel power generation and costs are excessive.

In Nunavut, power rates range from a low of 32¢ a kilowatt hour in Iqaluit to 79¢ a kilowatt hour in Whale Cove, one of our smaller communities. Most power rates in Nunavut are in excess of 55¢ a kilowatt hour. In the Northwest Territories the cost of electricity in the tiny community of Colville Lake is $2.15 per kilowatt hour.

These rates drive up the cost of living and make it impossible for people to meet basic requirements. It's very difficult for business to survive. It is not unusual for the small community co-ops in the north to spend between $250,000 and $350,000 per year in electricity costs. Our territories cannot prosper and grow with these types of costs. The Government of Canada must work with our territorial governments to find a way to make the cost of living more affordable in the north. An important starting point is the cost of electricity.

Ladies and gentlemen, our co-operators in the Arctic are community-based organizations that have been working for 50 years to build our communities and develop our people. We are committed to working with all levels of government and other organizations to build a strong and sustainable economy in the north.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening. We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Ms. Sikma.

Now we'll go to Mrs. Rowena House. As I mentioned earlier, Mrs. House is with the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association.

I'm glad you could join us. Go ahead with your presentation, about five minutes. Just take a normal pace and it should be good. Go ahead.

[Rowena House, Executive Director, Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association]

Good evening, standing committee members and panel.

Created as a non-profit, incorporated society in October of 1998, the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association, or as we call it, NACA, works on behalf of Nunavut visual artists to promote the growth and appreciation of their creative talents and the wide variety of arts and crafts they produce. Nunavut is home to a multitude of carvers, printmakers, ceramic pottery makers, painters, photographers, jewellery and tapestry artists, and seamstresses, and I can go on and on.

Membership with NACA is free for artists. Currently we have over 800 members to our credit. NACA represents artists from across the territory. We continually seek out opportunities to promote the industry in new and existing markets and realize additional sales for Nunavut artists.

In the interests of diversifying and strengthening the arts sector, we work strategically to introduce and advance new methods of artistic expression. Through activities such as conferences, workshops, and the annual Nunavut arts festival, NACA strives to create a better business and working environment for artists. NACA is regularly called upon to help with coordination of events such as the Northern Lights trade show, where the artists enjoy the opportunity to showcase their talents and market their artwork.

At NACA, we are committed to supporting our membership by applying for funding through agencies such as the Canada Council for the Arts and Canadian Heritage to access the dollars we need to complete the projects outlined in our four-year strategic plan and action plan. These guiding documents, plus other day-to-day activities, will provide direction as NACA accesses the required funding to further the organization and continue to grow.

The following are points to consider as we focus on improving the economic outlook of the arts sector.

The arts sector in Nunavut is one of the most important parts of the economy of the territory. Inuit art, with its world-renowned reputation, is one of our major exports. Artistic production is a significant source of income in most of our communities. It is estimated that this sector employs and gives economic benefits to over 3,000 artists and directly contributes $30 million annually to the territorial economy.

To ensure the sector's viability, NACA emphasizes the importance of the transfer of skills from elders or established artists to youth. Our youth are not getting involved, as in many cases they believe that work in the arts field is an unprofitable venture and not a viable job option. We fear that this erosion of knowledge will have a significant impact on the arts economy in the coming years. Mentoring must be reinvigorated and fostered to help improve the arts sector and keep it as a sustainable source of revenue and a respectable occupation.

Our artists need access to funding. Some of our member artists are unilingual and require additional help to fill in applications in order to advance their marketing opportunities. NACA intends to assist them by facilitating more funding opportunities at the social economy level to support them in becoming full-time artists.

Programs offered by Aboriginal Business Canada and other federal programs are currently underused. Artists do not take advantage of this funding due to the difficulty in filling in the various applications and the length of time required to process funding requests.

To facilitate applications from Nunavut artists, forms should be created in straightforward formats that are more user friendly and translated into Inuktitut. Communicating in a language that is comfortable and known to the artist is an important aspect of the Inuit culture. To address these issues, NACA is working with the Canada Council for the Arts to ensure their applications are available in an easy-to-understand format and translated to Inuktitut for Nunavut artists.

The Department of Economic Development and Transportation has worked hard in developing a new authentic Nunavut brand on behalf of the Government of Nunavut. This new branding program will help solidify Nunavut's identity in the art sector and move us forward in being recognized as a unique contributor to the Inuit art world and the wider arts market.

NACA is a strong supporter of the authentic Nunavut brand and the benefits of this program for our artists, because it will certify their artwork as original, handmade, and from Nunavut. It will promote genuine work over imitations and make Nunavut arts and crafts easily recognizable around the world.

In support of authentic Nunavut, NACA would like to secure the federal government's assistance in facilitating communications with the igloo tag program, which is administered through the Indian and Northern Affairs, to foster a stronger partnership between the two programs. This working partnership is one of the missing key components to ensuring the authentic Nunavut brand programs thrive.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak about the Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association and Nunavut's art sector, a significant part of the overall Nunavut economy.

We are focusing on moving the sector forward, and with your assistance, improving funding relationships, allowing easier access to funding for our artists, and working together to solidify the authentic Nunavut brand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Mrs. House.

I should say for the benefit of members that we did receive briefs from some of the witnesses this evening. They will be translated and distributed to you in due course.

Now we'll go to questions from members. Members, we are going to stick to our five minutes in both the first and second round of questioning. So you're going to have to avoid questions in the last 20 seconds of your five minutes. If we are getting very close to that, we're just going to give you a few seconds for something very short, because in order to allow the witnesses to answer, of course, they need some time as well.

Witnesses, what we have here is basically a predetermined order that allows each of the parties present on the committee a fair distribution of questions. They are allowed, as you probably inferred from my remarks, five minutes for both the question and the answer.

Members will generally direct their questions to specific witnesses or they may open it up, but we'll try to manage whichever way they choose to do that.

Let's go to our first round of questions, beginning with Mr. Russell for five minutes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good evening to each of you. Thank you for taking the time late in the day to come out and speak with us.

Over the last day we have had a lot of presentations. Certainly we've asked the questions and we are getting an earful. We asked what were the barriers to economic development, and we are getting it in both ears, and through the eyes as well, which is important. But I also get the strange sense that there is so much opportunity, that even though there is a lot of struggle and there are a lot of challenges, there is a great opportunity here. We have seen some of it already, which has been enunciated, with the Arctic College, with the co-operative movement for 50 years—and congratulations on that--and with artists and the industry at $30 million a year, and more could be done.

But through all of this I get the sense that there is this struggle, almost, with the south. I hear that programs get designed from the south that don't fit the north, that people don't understand that there is a marketing problem when they try to say you can get reindeer in Nunavut; that when we talk about it from a visionary perspective, our focus has been east-west and not north-south. So there is this pushing and pulling all the time, but at the same time there is the sense that people point to the south as well for some of the answers—you know, the federal government, the federal government, the federal government.

My question will be an overarching one. Is it true that people in the north, and specifically in Nunavut, feel held back by the south, by the decisions, by the models of delivery, by perceptions, by control issues? Do people feel that?

That leads us to the issue of devolution and shifting the responsibility, and people taking the responsibility to deliver their own tourism programs. I want to know how people feel about that, because I think it will help us in terms of how we put our study in context.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It sounds like kind of an open question. Who would like to go?

Mr. West and then Mr. Vandermeulen. Give brief responses, if possible.

[Chris West]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To sum up your question, Mr. Russell, what you're asking is if we feel like we're left in the dark. I think somewhere along the line the federal government must have noticed that, because they set up CanNor. So I think, yes, there has always been that issue there. As CanNor develops, I think there will probably be less of that as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Mr. Vandermeulen, go ahead.

[Daniel Vandermeulen]

Without addressing the feeling itself, I think one of the things that may have produced the feeling is that you're dealing with totally different scales of economy here. When you're looking at the population north of 60, the three territories, you're looking at only about 100,000 people. We all share one area code. So the scales of economy are so vastly different, particularly in Nunavut, where there are 25 of everything, including airports, for 30,000 and some people. Where else in Canada would you find 25 airports for 30,000 people? One of the reasons why so much public federal policy doesn't fit is that the economies of scale here are so far away from the Canadian average.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Anyone else? Go ahead.

[Colleen Dupuis]

I would have to agree with the other two panellists that it's not that we necessarily feel abandoned or left out, but just there have to be solutions that fit this environment. It's not necessarily that the programs that the federal government offers are bad, it's just that there can be tweaking to suit this environment better that would make them more used here. People would take advantage of them if they were presented in a way that meets the needs of Nunavut particularly, because we're still very different from the other two territories in terms of infrastructure, in terms of our not having roads, and in terms of how things are delivered.

Even just in terms of history, if you look at the history of somewhere like Dawson, it goes back a hundred years. A hundred years ago Inuit were living on the land in igloos. You have to look at this territory and how, even in the last fifty years, in some ways it's almost gone from stone age to jet age and has made massive progress in fifty years, and with a little more help it can make even more progress.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

That will have to do it. Thank you, Mr. Russell.

Through the course of the day today we've had two Inuktitut interpreters with us. I don't know if there are any needs at this point. We only have one panel left. If no one needs interpretation, we could probably let our interpreters go.

I'd like to name them, though. They're two wonderful folks who have joined us here today to give us that extra help with our meetings. They are Leah Idlout and also Adamie Pitseolak. We are delighted to have you here today.

Really, if none of the panellists are in need, we have very much appreciated your services today, but we don't need to keep you any longer. It's been a long day for you, and we very much appreciate it.

Now it is Mr. Lévesque's turn for five minutes. The second question and the second member.

Mr. Lévesque.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen, I see that we have equal numbers of men and women this evening.

Mr. West expressed a concern. He was wondering about the ability of people at CanNor to make decisions about the north. We met with the deputy minister, whose office is here, in Iqaluit. As deputy minister, she has to be able to make decisions herself. Otherwise, she should be replaced. The person in that position should be able to make decisions.

Now, my question is for Mr. Vandermeulen, and it has to do with education. This afternoon, we met with a mining official. He said that miners could be trained on the job. I hope that you will not make that mistake. As someone who is not aboriginal or Inuit, you would be hated. A number of people could be killed. In Quebec and Ontario, training for mine workers is mandatory and has saved many lives, for that matter.

The mining official admitted that it was necessary to hold consultations on vocational education, as well as high-school education to train people. As discussed this afternoon, that kind of thing is anticipated. It would probably be advisable for you, for the Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit, to think about a training program for miners, as they will most likely be the first ones called to the development sites.

I am not sure whether there were other concerns about development. As far as the territorial government goes, I do not know what its powers are. Usually, in matters of tourism, education and culture, jurisdiction falls to the province. I think it is up to the provincial authorities to negotiate with the federal government, depending on their needs in those areas. If the federal government—which has just been caught, by the way—does not listen to you, we will be there to make sure it knows.

Mr. Vandermeulen, would you like to give your opinion on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Go ahead, Mr. Vandermeulen.

[Daniel Vandermeulen]

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque.

I think your advice on mine training is well taken. You can do a lot with on-the-job training. I think it's an extremely critical portion of any kind of career training, the transfer from the classroom to the job site. But there's also a lot of work that needs to happen before the student goes to the job site, and particularly in the area of safety.

Safety is something that has to come number one. The most critical factor in safety is actually literacy. Again, I come back to the preparation of all potential employees to have the basic functional literacy to be safe on the work site. Having said that, we're not only planning a facility to train millwrights and welders, but we actually are training mine workers. We have a 24-week access to mining trades program. It just started. So we are working with the mining industry itself and with the Inuit regional organizations. This is particularly true in the Kivalliq.

When it comes to the constitutional issues, yes, it's true that the territories and provinces have constitutional authority on education, but there's an inequity built into that statement, and that is, that the provinces and the territories don't have the same fiscal capacity. While, for instance, in the Northwest Territories it's really nice for southerners to see diamond mines, other than payroll taxes and things like that, there are very little or no royalties coming back to the territory.

You'll find there's a differential there. It's clear there is a constitutional authority there, but the fiscal capacity is not equal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque and Mr. Vandermeulen.

We'll go to Madam Hughes, for five minutes.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I'm trying to get some sense of this. You talked about there being 60% without high school education. I'm just wondering if you know what the dropout rate is in the high schools, first of all. I had some conversations with some of the community members yesterday and today, and my understanding is that there is probably a very high dropout rate in high schools. I think that's something that would need to be addressed, first of all, if you plan to get them to college.

Also, what is the dropout rate in the college in the first two years? I believe one of the presenters earlier today mentioned that there was a 50% dropout rate in the first two years, but I want to get some understanding on that. Maybe I misunderstood. How many students do you currently have? Does the fact that there's not enough housing actually play a role in the fact that people can't come here to go to school?

Maybe we'll start with those, and then if I have time I'd like to address a few more issues that were brought up here.

[Daniel Vandermeulen]

The statistics I gave you were for the age population of 25 to 64 years. We're talking about high school non-completion. I think it's important to distinguish between that and dropouts. Many of the communities didn't have high schools to drop out of. There's a historical balance here, created by the lack of a community-based high school system.

I'm told that the first school built in the eastern Arctic here in a little community at that time called Frobisher Bay, which is now Iqaluit, was in 1956. I don't know about you, but I can remember 1956. I was in junior high in 1956. I'm sure you weren't, but I was. That's one of the biggest misconceptions, that what we're talking about here is a dropout rate. We're not talking about a dropout rate because in many cases there wasn't a high school to drop out of in the first place; we're talking about a non-completion rate.

The graduation rate at the grade 12 level has in fact been slowly increasing. It's difficult work, but it is slowly increasing. I believe the territorial figures are somewhere in the area of 25%, but you'd have to check with a representative from the Department of Education for that. I'm often asked by southern acquaintances what the three largest problems faced by Nunavut are. I often say housing, housing, and housing.

It's not the number of desks I have in my classrooms but the number of beds I have in my dorms that controls the enrollments in my three campuses. We are trying to embed more and more programs into the communities—where people live—so that we're not limited by the number of beds and we don't disrupt or dislocate families.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

If you want to have time for more, we're down to about a minute and a half. Did you want to continue with that line of questioning?