Kevin A. Menicoche

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, March 12, 2009, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, that notwithstanding Motion 1-16(2), the Standing Committee on Government Operations shall table a final report on its review of the Official Languages Act during the May/June 2009 sitting of the Legislative Assembly;

And further, that the Standing Committee on Government Operations be authorized to share its findings and recommendations with language groups and affected stakeholders in advance of their presentation in...

Certainly everybody in the North and throughout the world is interested in following up on alternate energy supplies. I think the key industry for Jean Marie River is the forestry industry. Is there a fund for a sustainable forest harvesting study that the Minister is aware of?

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement on sawmills, particularly Jean Marie River. Perhaps I’ll ask the Minister of ITI, as he had the Western Harvesters Fund. Are there existing sawmills that are funded within his department right now or is there a specific program to fund sawmills?

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Certainly I think Jean Marie River is eligible to access that type of funding. I think the key message here is that right now our government is not concentrating on the forestry industry. I know we have some business planning coming up. I’d like to ask the Minister and even government on the other side of the House to ensure that it’s part of our strategy in the upcoming business planning cycle. It’s a complementary strategy to our Biomass Strategy.

Indeed, the community of Jean Marie River is very excited for the Biomass Initiative because that is something that they are pursuing as well. The community is also concerned about their existing sawmill operations because the sawmill operations are good. It produces the fuel, the need for biomass co-generation, et cetera. Can we look at stand-alone or project-specific dollars within ITI or maybe…I think the Minister is also leading the energy committee. Can we look at something that can take up the stimulus needed for the forestry industry?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to speak in favour of the motion. I think it was a good program. We used to have it before with our territorial government. I would like to see the department try to make the resources available to make this manageable to deliver small community chipsealing program. I think that it is something that our government can do, one little small thing, that will help make lives better in the communities.

Quite often there is a larger chipsealing program going by one of the communities who can utilize that and to take into account the smaller communities. For some...

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I would like to express my respect and appreciation for these language workers. I would also like to support all my constituents who speak South Slavey every day in the community in their home. I would like to encourage everybody to pass South Slavey on to their children and grandchildren. We can only secure a future for our First Nation languages if our children continue to speak South Slavey. [English translation not provided.]

Last week I was glad to hear the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment was advancing the implementation of the Dene Kede...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be voting in favour of the motion. That is something that my constituency and residents of my constituency have always said, is that when they go to apply for NWT Housing Corporation programming, often they are saying they are making too much. This frustrates Nahendeh residents to no end, because the reality is that there are dual income households out there. There is a good reason for that, Mr. Chairman. It is only because they are trying to address their high cost of living and they are working hard to achieve those ends. A lot of them, too, are not only...

Yes, I just wanted to raise with the Minister that there is a desire out there, maybe create, like I said, maybe a line item that can help our aboriginal communities. Basically we are off-reserve housing and just keep that in mind for any discussions or any new announcements on federal initiatives and how they plan to role that out. I know somehow our government should be able to make the case to the federal government that there must be a way in order for us to access those additional dollars that will certainly go a long ways in helping us out there, Mr. Chairman. Thanks.

Hopefully, we can get around some of these issues, because that’s something that I know in the community of Fort Liard are challenged with. That annually, teachers are hired in the springtime but they show up in the fall time only to find out they’re having challenges with the units that are available. It’s something that I would urge the Minister and government to try to put in place and even create some units this coming summer. Once again, I am glad to see that line item there. Maybe I can shift gears here a little bit.

I know that Mr. Yakeleya was talking specifically about urban native...