Yellowknife, N.W.T. - The spreading of jobs out of the capital and into the communities is one issue that still remains at the top of the list for Hay River North MLA Robert Bouchard.

When people from small communities leave to pursue their education, often they are not able to return because there is not enough opportunity for work.

Bouchard would like to see the current jobs that are in the NWT spread out to the communities and not jobs from out of the province.

“My big concern is that with devolution, they’ve talked about some jobs coming from Ottawa and those jobs have been looked at as going to the regions, but if we don’t do that with the current jobs we have, there’s going to be this influx of jobs all at once,” he said.

Bouchard said he wants people to be able to have the opportunity to work in their community and not have to move to Yellowknife for work.

“Opportunities for those people to live in their home communities, to get the education they need,” he said. “We promote telling people to get an education, get their degrees, get their diplomas, certificates, apprenticeships and the difficulties are that jobs are difficult to get in the regions.”

Bouchard said Hay River is fortunate because there are more housing and office space locations there right now.

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