Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Members who have brought this motion forward, Mr. Nadli and the MLA for Range Lake.

This past winter Minister Ramsay and myself travelled over 702 kilometres on the Mackenzie Valley winter road. Mr. Ramsay and I also took turns driving on the Mackenzie Valley winter road, and there were several close calls. Even though the vehicles were going 50 kilometres an hour, the roads were so narrow and so bumpy, and not quite up to the standards where we’d like to see our roads up in the Mackenzie Valley.

I’d like to see if there is some way that this government...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, the Honourable Jackson Lafferty, regarding single parents receiving assistance under the Income Support Program.

Please provide the total number of single parents receiving assistance under the Income Support Program.

Please provide the various ranges that single-parent clients receive under the Income Support Program.

Please provide details on the support single parents are eligible for under the Income Support Program.

Please provide a breakdown by constituency of the number of single parents...

We’re looking at the bigger issue with the Norman Wells royalty regime. I want to ask the Premier, because of the interest now in the Norman Wells area, and not just the Norman Wells proven area, does the Premier see the Husky, the Conoco, the Shell type of structure that could possibly see the federal government looking elsewhere outside Norman Wells to say there’s not millions but there’s billions to be had. Is that something that we have positioned ourselves so that they keep their hands out of our pockets?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier of the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Premier some questions around the Norman Wells proven area. Specifically, I want to target on the resource revenue issue with the Government of Canada. I want to ask the Premier, in regard to this issue here, if the Government of Canada is holding firm on their stance that this area here is not a resource revenue sharing deal other than they have other interests, such as a commercial venture, and if there are any other type of discussions to see if they will move away from that definition.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use my last Member’s statement of this long winter session to pay tribute to a Canadian icon who died recently – as my friend Mr. Bouchard also did – the one and only Stompin’ Tom Connors.

Stompin’ Tom was a friend to all Canadians and wrote timeless songs about our great country from sea to sea. In his honour, I’d like to perform my own version of a song he didn’t write but often performed.

I was walking the winter road from Tulita to Norman Wells

when along came a trucker like a bat out of hell.

If you’re going to The Wells, he says,

with me you can ride.

I...

I look forward to the Minister’s proposal or discussion here. The emergency search and rescue needed some walkie-talkies, other equipment for ground search, water search, and that’s the type I’m looking for from this Minister. If he could work with his colleagues and look through his department and say, what can we commit to this emergency search and rescue kit that we have in any one of our communities in the Northwest Territories. Will the Minister look at that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talk about emergency search and rescue effort in Tulita last summer and the help of many people across the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Minister of MACA if his department has this type of initiative that they can go forward in helping communities like Tulita where people just got together and did the right thing and people later on joined helping out with funding and other sorts of things. We need some help in our small communities. Is the Minister willing to look at some of these kinds of concepts that the Tulita people are asking...

Thank you. I appreciate the Minister being straightforward and clear with me. So thank you very much. I have no more questions.

We look forward to it once that day arrives, and the Minister and his staff will be prepared to start dealing with the Deline self-government. I know they’re close to organizing themselves to have the final vote, and then we’ll see what we can do within the Legislative Assembly.

I guess, just to say that it’s quite exciting to talk at this level, talking about the Tlicho Government. They’ve come a long way and I just want to say that I never thought that in my day and age that we would come to this type of realization where we’re talking government to government. I look forward to the Minister...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the Proposal to Emergency Preparedness Plan: A Community Plan for the People of Tulita.