Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talk about the residential school students who went to schools outside their communities. I talked somewhat about my uncle. I want to ask – I don’t know if it’s the Minister of Justice or the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, but maybe I’ll ask the Minister of Justice on this one here – about students that did not come back to their communities. There are some families in the communities who are waiting for their son or their brother or their sister. One of their family members has not come back. What is the Department of Justice...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the weekend I was thinking about this day because of a motion that was read in the House last week. I was thinking about the students that we are thinking about. I was thinking about the parents who are not here today with us, parents who put their trust in the hands of the church, the government, either by sending the children to residential schools or if the parents were so scared that when the children were taken from the community, such as my uncle, when they heard the boat coming in and stopping in Tulita, they would run to the bushes and they would hide. The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have jotted down a few notes. I will say some more later on to this motion.

From the early ‘60s through the late ‘70s, never have I imagined that a government, let alone people who would one day want to observe a day in the life of a student of a survivor of a residential school, like me who grew up in such an institution. There are many me’s in this situation.

Like I said earlier, when I was sitting home this weekend, we are the ones who made it out. As the saying goes, only the strongest survive, and we also had enough of carrying the whole world on our shoulders and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How would people in our communities go about this? You say they can call, but who would they call? How would this be communicated to the people in our small communities? Would it be done on TV, ads, workshops, conferences? How would they know that they can call this number to know where they can get some information? Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister taking the question. I wasn’t too sure which Minister would take it. I want to continue on with the Minister of Justice. For the students that did not come back from these residential schools, there are stories, there are innuendos, there are assumptions, there are people telling us this is what happened to that little boy or little girl. I want to ask the Minister of Justice if he would look into his department to see where he can look with the staff that he has, to say we want to get down to the bottom of this, what is it that we need to do. Can the Minister provide...

The Department of Transportation has some well dedicated staff. Maybe they might be overworked, because we got a lot of money from Transportation and the federal government to put projects right across the Northwest Territories. We certainly, in the Sahtu, could also help with some of these projects here, with the transportation, the design, the work. We can also even take some of this project management. They did a wonderful job in Colville Lake. The department and the community put together a good team and they put the airport there. It can get done. I think the department needs to give a...

Madam Chair, I want to ask the Minister on the bridges that are being worked on in the Sahtu region, because of the increase of the traffic over the winter season, and it’s going to get worse in a good way, that we need to look at the bridges. I want to ask the Minister on the bridges in the Tulita area and outside Norman Wells that those bridges need to be taken care of. Will that happen this winter?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to thank Ms. Bisaro for bringing this motion for discussion in the House here. I think the timing is right in terms of creating an ombudsman office here in the Northwest Territories. It is an office that would be independent from the government, at arm’s length. It will have the powers to look into matters and issues on behalf of our people, and it will have the powers of, hopefully, the full scope of the government services that we provide. It will be centred around people much like our jobs here in the Assembly.

I see this office here having a lot of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table the Sahtu Regional Graduation List 2012.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Members in this House, we are all proud of our graduates this year. I ask the Minister, there’s nothing impossible. There’s a can-do attitude here. Can he set things in motion that can look at how we track the increase of students. It’s not impossible. We can do it. We have 5,000 people in our workforce here. We can do it if the Minister puts things in place in motion that can be done. Can the Minister make it so?