Better education opportunities and outcomes, more economic development assistance and improved infrastructure make up the bulk of recommendations from a report on northern prosperity tabled in the House of Commons on Friday.

Speaking for the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, Yukon MP Larry Bagnell – one of 15 members on the all-party body – last week touted the committee's work and conclusions.

Nine of the document's 35 recommendations are aimed at education and training for aboriginal northerners, several focus on land claim and self-government deals – either hastening outstanding ones or implementing others – but the report ignores two pivotal pieces of infrastructure lacking in the North.

While it urges the federal government to enhance the northern territories' information highway through broadband proliferation, the all-weather Mackenzie Valley highway in the N.W.T. and a deep water port desperately needed in Nunavut garner no mention. "It would take 1,000 years to answer all those (infrastructure requests) and then to decide which would be more beneficial,” Bagnell said of ideas the committee heard through lengthy hearings in Ottawa and across the three territories. "I'm not sure it was incumbent on us to make those decisions.”

Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie said he supports both infrastructure projects – the deep water port and Mackenzie highway – and was surprised the report mentioned neither.

"It is the biggest fundamental reason why the Yukon is progressing in a way that's outdistancing our sister territories,” said Fentie of the territory's road network that connects most Yukon communities to each other and the outside world.

Infrastructure conclusions the standing committee did arrive at beyond broadband, urged Ottawa to expand hydroelectric transmission grids, assist with adapting to climate change risks, and "to meet the continuing needs of housing in the North.”

"Everything is interrelated,” said Bagnell. "If you fix the housing, you improve the health of people ... and this (recommendation) supports other reports coming out of Ottawa.”

Between 2006 and 2008, Ottawa's Northern Housing Trust provided the territory $50 million for affordable housing, of which Yukon First Nations received $32.5 million and the Yukon government the balance.

And under the federal Conservatives' "economic action plan”, the three territories and northern communities in the provinces received a share of 200 million additional dollars to construct and maintain social housing.

Combined with the latest mining boom in the Yukon that has produced record investment years, and the territory's consecutive billion-dollar budgets (of which more than 70 per cent is federal money), Bagnell acknowledged the territory he represents is lucky.

"Sometimes I say that Yukoners are the richest people in the world,” said Bagnell of the resource-rich region blessed with great jobs and superior wilderness. "That said, there are people who get left behind.”

The federal government now has three months to consider the standing committee's recommendations and report back to the House of Commons.

According to the standing committee's report and recommendations, Canada should:

• Develop a northern strategy for the increased production and use of renewable energy sources.

Furthermore, the federal government should continue to support pilot projects and demonstration activities, to better inform northern communities and businesses on environmental merits and potential cost savings of renewable energy;

• Continue to facilitate partnerships and continue to provide financial support to territorial and aboriginal governments, businesses and communities to establish educational structures and training programs that attract aboriginal students in order to satisfy the employment requirements in the North;

• Continue to work with territorial government and aboriginal organizations to fund aboriginal student-training programs, through partnership with specific companies or industry sectors, and consider, along with territorial governments, an initial subsidy for training and wages conditional on trainee performance;

• Facilitate the development of the northern economy by attracting and retaining more skilled workers, consider enhancing the Northern Residents Tax Deduction to more fully compensate for costs of living faced by individuals in the North;

• Work in partnership with aboriginal organizations, territorial governments and federal departments and agencies to expedite the resolution of all outstanding land claims and self-government agreements in the northern territories;

• Identify and implement mechanisms such as multiyear funding for contribution agreements, where possible, to ensure timely and adequate funding for activities of aboriginal communities in relation to their negotiations on self-government.