Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is said water is life and life is water. Hydraulic fracking will be a big issue for the Northwest Territories now. During the review of the Department of Natural Resources’ budget, some of the Members of this side of the House shared some concerns about fracking because of the oil and gas development in the Sahtu, and that it’s putting pressure on the Government of the Northwest Territories, federal regulatory and Aboriginal organizations to make decisions about the use of this technology.

Fracking would make us wealthy, but at what cost? The process involves blasting...

Under medical equipment under $50,000, the funding for the minor medical equipment purchases, I wanted to thank the Minister of Health. One time when he went to Colville Lake, that certainly helped us with a dental chair. I believe it was Mr. Miltenberger who was the Minister of Health at that time. These simple things in our health centres that we have medical equipment that sometimes gets overlooked. Certainly, now the people in Colville Lake talk about that incident where the Minister had to come to the health centre to look at some of the equipment that we have there. They were second hand...

I look forward to the plan the Minister is working on and how we move this plan forward. How many communities are without a nurse stationed at their health centres?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister earlier made a ministerial statement on MACA and talked about community ownership and community involvement in planning. I want to ask the Minister if his government colleagues have talked about some type of territorial housing strategy sometime within the life of this government to look at year 2038.

I want to ask the Minister, did he say “roughly”? I will be roughly about 78, quick calculations. I want to ask the Minister, is this something we could look at on a territorial strategy for housing, or national housing strategy, that we can think about these types of things that are going to be put onto our future generations with regard to housing in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The federal government will be getting out of public housing in 2038. That’s 25 years from now. I should be about 35 years old by then. The federal government will not continue to allocate funding for social housing in the Northwest Territories or in Canada.

We are experiencing cutbacks from social housing right now as we speak. Every year we’re receiving less and less. Soon the money will run dry, and then what? Are we ready for this? That’s a good question.

Today we own about 2,400 public housing units in the Northwest Territories. Each unit costs the NWT Housing...

Madam Chair, the Minister has highlighted a critical point for us in the Sahtu. As the Minister of ITI and I have noted, the activity in the Tulita and Norman Wells area is very busy with oil and gas activity, and more and more people are coming into our area. With the lifting of the unrestricted liquor sales, it just adds to the issue of services in health care.

Medevac is one that is dearly held to our hearts because that’s our lifeline outside to services in Yellowknife or in Edmonton. We don’t have the luxury of an all-weather road yet. Hopefully that will be some time down the future. That...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that, on Monday, February 25, 2013, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that the Government of the Northwest Territories immediately initiate discussions with the Government of Canada to prioritize funding for an all-weather Mackenzie Valley Highway from Wrigley into the Sahtu;

And further, that the Government of the Northwest Territories immediately initiate discussions with the Government of Canada to seek federal investment and human resource development initiatives along the lines of...

I was reading a book, and in the book there was a quote that said the home is the heart of the nation. In 2038, if that’s the case with the federal government, they’re going to rip the heart of our nation out here. I want to ask the Minister – I know he’s working hard on reducing the public housing units and in regard to his strategy – will this strategy meet the point in 25 years that we will not have any public housing? Will all those homes belong to people in our communities?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I indicated a date of 2038, 25 years away. I will be, roughly, about 75 years old. I want to ask the Minister, what then? Once the social funding is done with the federal government, are we moving towards where people in the Northwest Territories will then all own the 2,400 units that are right now in stock?