Norman Yakeleya

It was a long bumpy road and I want to ask the Minister, with all the work going on in the Sahtu, and next year Good Hope is going to get busy on that section, I want to ask the Minister if he could put pressure on his colleagues in the department to get that bridge. The bridge is there because of the engineering that wasn’t done properly. Could the Minister press his department to get that bridge? There’s over a million dollars in infrastructure sitting there. They might as well just bring that Oscar Creek Bridge and put it right in front of the Legislative Assembly because that’s all it’s...

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last weekend I had the opportunity to drive the Mackenzie Valley winter road with Minister Ramsay. Over 700 kilometres through God’s country makes a guy feel a little poetic. I want to share with my colleagues here today some of the things that were going through my mind.

Almost heaven, just past Wrigley, Mackenzie Mountains, Deh Cho Big River. The roads get rough here, rough as any seas. Holes and bumps and ridges, spilling coffee on my knees.

Winter road, get me home to the place I belong. Sahtu country, Great Bear River, get me home, winter road.

All the oil companies...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to say something to the Minister on the community operations. The communities are moving towards being more self-sustainable such as the infrastructure that’s going on in the communities. We want to ensure that this continues on. So I want to let the Minister know that the people in the Sahtu that attended the Good Governance courses appreciated it, and they say that was a real good course. So it’s things like that that help our people. If you bring training programs like that into the Sahtu, they wanted me to say thank you on behalf of the people, the ones I...

Madam Chair, the communities have certainly seen the impacts through our boundaries, the roads and the traffic, certainly in Norman Wells. They are starting to realize that this is not going to slow down; because words of the oil companies is that they have encouraging results. So far they are looking at the sites and they are finding it more encouraging than ever. We have a lot of work amongst ourselves to do in our communities. I am looking forward to MACA’s support for additional staff members and additional support for helping us. That’s what I want to ask the Minister, the type of support...

Madam Chair, there is training going on in Alberta. It’s called First Responders Medical Training. I saw it in one of the newspapers. They have it in Alberta. I guess we need to look and see how we can start identifying people in our region to do first responders medical training. We can work with the federal government on this initiative.

The other one is the community infrastructure. If they want to sign on to this, they are looking at a type of purchasing equipment. I’m not too sure how healthy the infrastructure budget is with the communities. They have roads, dumps, other things to look at...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The issue of public safety was of grave concern for the Minister of Transportation, and I when we drove the winter road last weekend there were some near misses. There are big trucks and the roads are quite narrow, so that’s what the Minister and I talked about.

The issue that I want to talk about is some of these vehicles have been struck. I just came back from the Sahtu and the Sahtu Dene Council annual general meeting, and people have come up and said some of their vehicles were hit and some clear misses. Some of them actually come out of the road. I mean, stop their...

If anybody wanted the job, there’s a job to be had in the Sahtu. It’s busy. It’s crazy. People are working. Even down in Nahendeh. Even in Wrigley, as the Minister and I heard. There are jobs up there. However, I want to ask the Minister if he could somehow be directive and forceful and say to the Sahtu, let’s get the training jobs going. We could make a huge contribution. Let’s not give out any more social assistance. Let’s get our people working. That’s what we want. That’s the kind of leadership I’m looking for from the Minister here. Can he do that?

I also have some information, as I indicated, that the increase of liquor sales from the Minister of Finance, or the liquor revenue commission report shows an increase of liquor sales in the Sahtu. Combine that with the activity that’s happening in the Sahtu, the amount of people coming in and the lifting of the liquor store rations are significant contributing factors to the crime associated with alcohol.

Any newspaper in the Northwest Territories, you look at it and you always say, the amount of crimes with liquor is high, 85 percent or higher, or drugs. So that tells me something. So I’m...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I am just following up on our road trip last weekend. My back is still sore. However, I’m going to stand here and I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, with all the activity and training going on, if he would review and evaluate the training plans for the Sahtu so that the people in the Sahtu can meet at least once a month to start preparing a strategy to get people on the job, get them trained and get them moving.