Norman Yakeleya

I would ask if the Minister would look at working with the Minister of MACA and seeing if they can bring some of the youth down the Mackenzie Valley to sit with the Elders’ Council and talk about some of the changes that are happening today.

Life today is very, very hard. The elders are saying if they do not get the message to our young people, our young people are going to be very pitiful in the future. We need to bring this forum together so that the elders can talk to the young people and tell them if you do not smarten up, you will not survive very long in this world. We need to come back...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize my cousin Besha Blondin. It’s good to see family sitting above me.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll be supporting this motion. Hopefully this motion will give some strength to the powers that be in this House in that they go down to Ottawa on every chance and talk to the people in Ottawa as to why we need to have northern rescue operations in the Northwest Territories.

We have a vast region. My colleague talked about Nunavut being served from Halifax, the Northwest Territories from Trenton, and the Yukon from BC and Vancouver. We need to get together with the other provinces and look at a northern operation that will serve the northern territories. So hopefully...

Can the Minister make a good case argument to the federal government that this $500 million can be tied to the development, and possibly look at the Sahtu as being zoned or designated as a special economic area that the federal government can release this $500 million?

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of ITI a question. Yesterday he talked about oil and gas exploration in the Sahtu that potentially could happen in the Good Hope, Tulita and Norman Wells area. What is his department doing with regard to dealing with the potential impact of the recent interest of the exploration in that area?

I would ask the Minister if he would have a serious discussion with the Minister of MACA to put together some form of a plan or outline and come back to committee to see that they get the support to go ahead or he could look within the government to make this happen. The survival of our people is at the brink of having our elders tell the youth what needs to happen in terms of continuing on with a good, healthy life in the Northwest Territories. I ask the Minister if he would come back with some form of discussion plan or some kind of plan and say this is what we want to do to pass on the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about a leader, the Great Chief Sitting Bull. One of his quotes was, “Lt’s put our minds together and see what kind of life we can make for our children.” Sitting Bull was a very spiritual man, just like our elders in the Sahtu and down the Mackenzie Valley. I wanted to ask the Minister, because the elders are very concerned about the way things are going today, that the land is changing, our children are changing, and our children will die if we do not wake up and start talking to our children. I want to ask the Minister of Health in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m reminded by one of our great leaders from the United States, Chief Sitting Bull, he said, at one of his council meetings to his chiefs, “Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.” I was reminded of that a couple of days ago when I had a meeting with the elders in Fort Good Hope, who sat around the table one morning and they were very, very concerned about our youth today.

Mrs. Groenewegen spoke a little bit about what the elders were talking about: the diet in the younger people with pop and chips and chocolate bars and fast food...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if there is a policy on patients who get or receive surgery at the Stanton Hospital. Is there a policy that they have to stay there so long, and then they have to leave the hospital back to their hometowns? I’m not too sure what that policy is called, but is there a policy in place?

The patients that I spoke to have gone to the health centre. Is there someone in the front that has enough information to say you have the right to ask for an examination, other than the nurse looking at you saying don’t come back or here’s some aspirin, come back the next day or come back when the doctor is in the community, which could be six weeks to three months? Our people won’t ask. You have to tell them they have the right to be examined and get a second opinion, if possible, and not to be asked to take some pills and go home.

What kind of policy encourages our people in the small...