Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll keep it short so I'm not keeping everybody from dinner and cocktails. So I just want to say that I do support this budget. I'm happy to see a lot of infrastructure projects going forward. 100 percent road funding that can't be used for houses, so we don't need to have that debate. It is money that's coming from the federal government to fix up our roads, and we didn't have to put any money into that. And I just want to say I completely support all of our communities and all of my small community colleagues' communities to be connected by roads, including what...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I will probably miss some Great Slave residents in all of this. I can't see much of the gallery, so I apologize in advance.

First, I'd like to start with recognizing my friend and constituent Garrett Cochrane who is a city councillor and a resident of Great Slave. I would also like to welcome Mr. Ollie Williams. I'm not quite sure if he's always my friend but, you know, I do appreciate the work that he does and the relationship that we've had over the last four years as well as recognizing the efforts of his team and the other media throughout the evacuation. So...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try to do this one from the heart because for me that's when I feel like I always am able to speak my best. So I've got a couple notes here and I'll forgive everybody will have to forgive me if I forget to mention someone that has been there for me.

I first just wanted to start with my personal staff that had helped me through the last while starting with my MSA, when I was a Minister, Krista Elander. Also my campaign manager. And as well Colleen O'Connor who was my constituency assistant for the majority of my time here in the House. I don't think she...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I didn’t speak about one of my favorite topics one last time in this Assembly, Infrastructure.

When I say that word, one’s mind often turns to roads and buildings, airports, and bridges. But really Infrastructure encompasses so much more than that. It is

The pipes that bring you water and carry away your waste.

The fibre optic line that allows you to instantly communicate or watch that sporting event in Europe.

The solid waste facility where you take your garbage or the water treatment plant that provides you with fresh, clean water to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And to answer my colleague's question, no, I won't be now having a baby in order to take advantage of these. My colleague from Nunakput, not Kam Lake, sorry.

I did want to say echo the sentiments as well that, you know, having been a part of this Assembly, to have this many women in and to see the changes that have occurred because of that, not only in our procedures but just some of the things that have happened where the conversations around earrings that we seem to have. We joke that the number 1 thing said here in this House sometimes is who made your earrings. And...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just don't accept these reasons that are being provided as to why this date needs to be pushed back even further. There's no reason that this could not be done with a professional association somewhere else. We have seen that in numerous other professions where because we don't have the people or the bodies to populate our own, we often will use others. For example, NAPEG uses the board of examiners for engineers in Alberta because we can't maintain that here on our own. So I do think that there was there is a method and a way that this could have been done by using...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Has the Member had any and this is probably quite a high or wishful question. But does she have any idea how much not having this dental hygienist practice or this ability to have preventative care is really costing us as a territory? Was there any work done around characterizing or quantifying how much money are we spending to send people either to Yellowknife, to the south? Why, when we're waiting for things that are preventative to become emergent situations? We obviously are paying more for that. Does the Member have any feel for how much money we would save by...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker or sorry, Mr. Chair. Maybe next go around.

Mr. Speaker, I'm quite frustrated with this entire process and how this has gone. You know, the decisions and reasons that were given to me, or to us as a committee from the department and the Minister regarding why this could not go ahead as of now or even in the two years that we've compromised on, they don't wash with me. Some of these things are things that such as well, no dental hygienist brought this forward. Well, they're busy. They're working. Everybody's trying to get into dental appointments. So just because they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So reading through all that, the answer's no, there was no discussion about them being the landlords of the future facility.

I guess where I kind of struggle with this, we're talking about economic development. We're talking about land claims. We know at some point the land around Frame Lake, because it will be settled and hopefully sooner rather than later, not that I think anything progressed during this Assembly; however, when that land is settled it will be developed. And at that point, there will be buildings, there will be things put on it. I really can't see the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We see this time and again where, you know, stuff is being done behind the scenes or things are advancing before it really is taken out to the public for that engagement. I think a good example of that was the five options presented to us for the airport terminal building at which point committee told the Minister right off the bat two were not viable.

So given that, I'm kind of you know, I have to wonder why we had all this kerfuffle if we haven't even picked that as the site yet. However, I would like to know has the department done a comprehensive assessment on areas...