Thank you for the question.
We certainly can't meet the workforce needs of the north with northern labour.
A lot is forthcoming in the Northwest Territories if there's transportation, if a lot of other factors fall into place. But mines that are proposed and moving forward are setting very low targets for northern labour. If we want taxation to stay in the north and if we want.... The best thing for a family, as my colleague said, is to have a job where they have that income. It's absolutely essential to lots of different elements of a good life, and if they can't secure a job because there's simply not enough labour any more to support that, then we're not doing very well for the northern economy.
Lots of people are still unemployed in the north. There are very high levels of unemployment. We still haven't tackled the barriers to those people working. Criminal records and pardons are a big barrier in the north. People don't know they have access to pardons or are simply unable to get rid of the past, barriers of addictions, social traumas that are in place. We haven't tackled the issues associated with families well enough.
I want to mention one program of the Tlicho government I'm aware of, which I've been involved with for the last two years and that I think is absolutely innovative and fundamental and changing the way we can educate people so they can be in the workforce. It's called the Tlicho Imbe program.
The Tlicho government allocates $2.3 million now, and has done so for two years, for any student in the south getting educated in non-aboriginal ways of life: doctor, lawyer, whatever it is they're pursuing, engineering, undergraduate work, even some of them coming from high school. Those people are then hired by the Tlicho government to be on the land for the entire summer. Their job is to be in their community, learning from their elders, learning their culture, language, and way of life.
Last week they were in Behchoko for a full week of immersion. Not a word of English was spoken in the full week. No one was allowed to speak English, only Tlicho. And at the same time we've gone to all the CEOs of the mines and said come on in, teach us about water quality monitoring while these youngsters are in the community. So they're learning how to set net, how to harvest, how to be out on the land, but they're also learning about water quality monitoring. It's a great way for people to be strong like two people.
I think that's the way forward for training. Rather than trying to turn everybody into a miner, remember that Canada has very different ways of learning and that we need to honour, respect, and grow those so we're not forcing people into a one-mode economy.