Kieron Testart

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize all the students who have come out to join us today and watch our proceedings. They were out earlier raising their voices, which is an important part of democratic participation, and I commend them for that. I encourage them to never stop, and one day perhaps seek an office in this House. We always need more representation from our Northern population.

Also, I'd like to recognize my good friend Fran Page who is visiting the Northwest Territories from Ottawa. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank my honourable friend for his comments. I think he has done an excellent job of summarizing the concerns many of us have with the budget and areas that need improvement. I will just repeat a few of those.

The Regular Members have asked for $500,000 for youth-in-crisis funding and to support a mobile crisis intervention team to address our atrocious rates of suicide, and especially suicide affecting young people in our communities; another $500,000 in antipoverty funding to support our NGOs in delivering what I would say are essential services to our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for his response. I will just ask again because I really want to nail this down: will the Minister consider developing a future skills lab pilot? Then, perhaps, let's put it in Inuvik instead of his home riding so we can make use of that fibreoptic link and the college there. Will he commit to developing an Inuvikbased pilot for a future skills lab; that we can get this project rolling in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister is open to the idea. How much time would it take to see something like this materialize? Are we talking about broadbased public consultation, the development of action plans and strategies, or could we put something like this to work within the end of the term, or is this something that is going to take years to start to see development?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, something I am perhaps most passionate about is the development of the Northwest Territories' knowledge economy. I have called for the evolution of Aurora College into a fully realized polytechnic institute. I have advocated for enhancing funding for Dechinta Bush University, and supported legislation to allow made-in-the-North academic degrees.

Mr. Speaker, although the success of our economy has always relied on resource industries, it is time to focus on building a resilient economy that capitalizes on the incredible talents of Northerners. I am talking...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to table the following document entitled "The Path to Prosperity Report from the Advisory Council on Economic Growth, February 6, 2017."

I appreciate that that postsecondary development is an important piece of knowledge economy initiatives. This future skills lab, though, is, again, an opportunity for interested parties to partner on an optin basis and would provide cofinancing to initiate pilot programs in skills and competency development.

I think of our remote Northern communities. We often have to develop new techniques to solve problems, and this would be an opportunity to finance innovation in that kind of problemsolving, so I think it is very separate from Aurora College. Again, is the Minister willing to look at this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement I talked about innovation and the supreme importance of creating an innovative and competitive economy for the Northwest Territories by investing in a knowledge economy. I spoke about a future skills lab. This is an initiative that the federal government has agreed to provide $100 million in funding for. Obviously, we can't do that with our fiscal capacity here, but there is an opportunity to build a northern skills lab that would create unique northern solutions by partnering with the federal government and with various other...

Maybe I was not clear enough. Are the dollars we are saving from identifying these efficiencies being reinvested into postsecondary education, with Aurora College or any of our other postsecondary partners, or back into SFA? Is any of this money going into postsecondary education, or are we just making cuts and the savings are going back into general revenue?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, honourable Members. Mr. Speaker, people with mental illness and addictions are more likely to die prematurely than the general population. Mental illness can cut 10 to 20 years from a person's life expectancy. It keeps people from being productive at home and at work and for too long has held Northerners back from achieving their full potential.

With a new action plan and new support from Ottawa and Indigenous governments, now is the time to take a stand and assure Northerners we are taking real action on mental health and addictions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.