Norman Yakeleya

The oil companies are very encouraged with the Canol shale play in the Sahtu. I want to ask the Minister, within the next couple months, I believe even by next month, there might be possibly an application going in for horizontal fracking in the Sahtu. The Minister has talked about the long term. Is there anything in the short term between now and the application that has reached the regulatory boards? Is this information going to be sufficient for us to judge it on the merits of this procedure?

I encourage the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to begin to pay close attention to all developments in the areas of protection and environmental stewardship, and to study best practices in other jurisdictions. We need to make the best choice and find ways to mitigate the impacts of this technology on our land, water, people and animals. Life flows from our water.

So I look forward to this Minister moving with his other colleagues and looking at where these dollars are going to be spent for the upcoming years. We have eight communities. I hope the Minister can forward me a list later on as to which communities do not have health nurses actually in the community, so that we can look at some proper staffing of these communities with some of these basic essential needs such as the health nurses in our communities. In the same line I will be asking questions to the Minister of Justice on communities that do not have RCMP, what type of plans are in place to...

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?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask the Minister somewhat in line with Ms. Bisaro’s question and earlier with Mr. Dolynny’s question. It has to do with medical travel and, specifically, I want to ask the Minister with regard to medevacs in our region.

I know there was some discussion about that with our regional people and the timing. I know the money is a real big issue. We’re always balancing the service of a saving a life versus what it costs for the medevac contracts. I know I’ve been speaking with the airline operator in Sahtu and looking at how we can best save a person’s life and...

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...