Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Kitchener—Conestoga for his work on this file as he sits on the committee and works to find solutions to some of the issues that come before that committee.
The question is with regard to the aboriginal communities in terms of the geographical area of my constituency. As many of the members of the House will know, I have great oil and natural gas reserves in my constituency. Obviously that makes for a number of things, and we do have a need for skilled tradespeople and labourers to work in our communities.
We have identified a number of roadblocks for aboriginal people in our constituency. Quite frankly, we have zero per cent unemployment as far as the general population goes, but unfortunately that is not the case in some of our aboriginal communities. We want to ensure that they can become part of this great success and this economic boom we are experiencing.
I have been working with the local college, Northern Lakes College, which reaches out to aboriginal people. I met with college officials just recently to discuss some of the things that have held them back. I am working with our provincial counterparts to try to reduce some of the things that keep individuals from remaining in school once they do enroll. On that front, we are working to try to resolve that.
However, certainly there is no question that if we can just get over some of the hurdles in terms of providing education and trades training to these individuals, they will be more likely and better suited to be able to take advantage of some of the economic opportunities we are experiencing.