Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, the information I have in front of me is October 29, 2012, one litre of gasoline in Fort Good Hope is about $1.07. So we lost 11,500 litres of fuel. Thank God for the berms that they had built there.

Can he also communicate this to the Minister of Environmental and Natural Resources, that when there are spills of such a large amount, that the MLA is also kept up to date as to the environmental damages and what’s happening with the damaged fuel that’s in that area? Can the Minister inform me this will be done as soon as possible? I hope that we have a new policy by next week.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Public Works. When Minister Ramsay and I were in Fort Good Hope last Friday, we were notified by the leadership of a fuel spill at the tank farm. When I did more research, I noticed there were two fuel spills, one on February 8th and one on February 22nd. I want to ask the Minister, what’s the communication protocol to let us Members know when there are incidents like that that have a significant damage to the communities. What is the Minister doing to straighten up his department to notify the MLAs right away? Why do we have to...

Thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister if he will start that discussion with his colleagues, with the Assembly within the life of this government, start putting together some discussions, some option papers, to see that the Minister of Seniors can have some type of authority, some leverage of funding just like the Native Women’s Association or the youth or the Women’s Secretariat. We’ve got to have some money for the elders secretariat. The elders need that. So I want to ask the Minister is he willing to commit, within the life of this government, to put some discussion papers, have a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the elders’ wisdom and their discussions with me and I want to ask the Minister responsible for Seniors regarding helping out elders in our small communities. It seems that the elders are really in need of some tender loving care and I want to ask the Minister are there any type of discussions within his department, with his colleagues to review looking at the role of the Minister responsible for Seniors and put some real dollars behind that department? Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Speaker. There was a quote that I’d like to do my Member’s statement on. The quote is: “The land is in my blood.” One reason for the lack of understanding between the European people and the Aboriginal people can be traced back to the early world views of Aboriginal humanity. For example, taking care of our elders or taking care of our land. Both are different but yet they are the same.

It is in the European’s view of the natural world that our resources are primary value, quite simply of raw material. In the North we have a wealth of these resources. For example, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to also ask the Minister for a response in regard to the fault of this fuel spill. Was it the manufacturer? Was it the contractor? I’m hoping that with the operator that they do certain checks, that the operator doesn’t get dinged with a big fuel bill for cleanup. Has that been sorted out? Is the person who is responsible picking up the tab on this?

I look forward to that new protocol, because it was about 11,500 litres spilled in Fort Good Hope due to the damage of one of the faulty valves that were leaking. I want to ask the Minister if this is the case in other tank farms across the Northwest Territories where this piece of valve was fitted into our tank farms.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister indicate to me, make a commitment within this time frame before the next business planning cycle, to come to the House with some discussion papers as to how we could look at creating an elders secretariat that would be fully responsible just for the elders in the North?

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is the training programs. Would there be training programs in place so that if this project, again, is approved and the project is taking off, would there be training programs for the people to take advantage of?

I appreciate the information the Premier has given me. I have to save some of this stuff for Member’s statements.

One more question. There have been some movements on the Metis rights with recent court case law. What is the government doing to analyze the impacts of that case law and how it might affect the way we work with Metis groups in the future?