Norman Yakeleya

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...

The increase of the development of the Sahtu, you know we’re early in the development. We are spending just over $630 million in exploration. Of course, there are a lot of social impacts that are going to happen with that money and the development we are talking about today. We need that money.

I want to ask the minister if he can work with his colleagues to make a strong argument to the federal government so that they can release some of the dollars, all of these dollars to the Northwest Territories to help us with the social impacts of oil and gas development. We need that. Can I ask the...

The Minister and I did attend the exploration readiness session. One of the issues that the communities talked about was the past Mackenzie Gas Project Socio-economic Development Fund of $500 million that the federal government was holding to deal with the impacts.

I want to ask the Minister, is there any way that he’s working with the Sahtu leadership to ask the federal government if they would release the Sahtu portion to deal with the interest of the oil and gas exploration that could and is happening in the Sahtu region regarding some of the issues we are talking about today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I asked the government if they would put the challenge, the same as us, out to our communities, talk to our youth right through this forum right now, in this time, and ask if they would help us get help in our region to support the Minister and themselves and to put a challenge out there so that the youth can also help with this forum. We don’t have to do things for them. Let them do things for themselves. I put the challenge out there.

Would the Minister put some form of challenge to the people, along with us to our young people, that if they want to live, they should...

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. Also, I have had indications where a mother went in with her child to get the child looked at because of a skin rash and that. The nurse didn’t really give the young child any type of medication and sent the child and mother home.

What assurances can the Minister give me here today that I can call the mother back and say go back to the health centre and the nurse will check the child over? How can we give this type of assurance to the people in Fort Good Hope that their health centre will look at the people no matter what, and then make the proper prescription of what...

How is this policy being monitored or being enforced? When I was in Fort Good Hope, certainly, residents there had told me about this not being fully enforced. How is this policy being encouraged so that the people who go to the health centre know that the nurse is going to see them in the examination room, rather than to either give them some pills or tell them not to come back, or not to really look at the issues? How is this being monitored and enforced?