It was a wonderful milestone last week. We announced at 100 Wellington that we were well along the path towards having an Inuit Nunangat university. We hope to open the doors to the first cohort of students in 2030. We certainly have a long way to go between now and then.
In our imagination of the university, it will be a particular opportunity for a particular type of student. The institution will be Inuit-led. There will be a focus on Inuit society and culture, and there will be a holistic nature to delivering a post-secondary educational program.
We understand that graduates, no matter if they go to law school, are doing a Bachelor of Education for teachers or are in a nursing program.... Inuit across Inuit Nunangat have used their degrees to do any number of different things: go into politics, as Ms. Idlout did; start their own businesses; or contribute to their communities in many different ways. We hope that graduates will have a foundation that spans from community-based interests to social interests and economic interests.
We know that the natural resource sector is a large component of the Inuit Nunangat economy. We also know that we want to grow small businesses and grow private entrepreneurship. We have tremendous artists who want to be business people as well. We hope this university can provide a much greater foundation for success in whatever the graduates want to do, but specifically within Inuit Nunangat.