Norman Yakeleya

Certainly, you have my support, Mr. Minister and staff, to see how this tourism is supported and funded by our government to promote. I understand the Olympics certainly gave a boost to the Northwest Territories with our venue there. Hopefully, it would spring from there to do other initiatives that are unique, especially to the culture of the people of the Northwest Territories. I believe that this tourism, this specific Aboriginal Tourism Initiative Strategy, is heading in that direction.

Certainly, I do know that our regions are sometimes supported by all-weather roads and some are not by...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to ask this department on the oil and gas information that we’ve been receiving the last couple of days on the resources and how the oil companies are looking at ways to extract the oil out of the Tulita district and the Sahtu through Norman Wells.

They talked about the hydraulic fracking. I know this is old and new information. It’s been used in Canada for awhile. It’s fairly new to us here. They did a little bit up in the Fort Liard area in the gas fields there, but with us in the Sahtu, they are talking about this as a potential method that they want to extract...

When I heard earlier your deputy minister say that $100,000 going for, that was making reference to the Bear River, now I see a little further Tlicho and Akaitcho. I guess I’m just wondering here how it’s going to be divvied up or how they’re going to administer it. I hope all three regions will have an opportunity to use this money for that year. Is it scheduled for that year? Not two regions are left out or one region is left out for whatever reason. I just want to make my comments and concerns known to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The office of the Mackenzie Gas Project, the Minister indicated that his department and the government have not yet given up or thrown in the towel on this project. The Mackenzie Gas Project has gone through some pretty rough rides. It’s on and it’s off. I’m not too sure, but we know the project is there. We all know that. But when you start to read and hear that oil companies are pulling out of the project, Esso is pulling back its staff on this project, the APG has cut back on staff. There are meetings in Ottawa and I’m not too sure what’s happening. The price of...

I want to ask the Minister, when they look at the hydro, especially in our area, in our land claim we have a clause in there that states the alteration of the quality and quantity of our water system is not to be severely impacted by that. I guess that’s a tricky question. If we are proposing and we want to have it on the Bear River, how do we work with that clause in our agreement that we will not see a change in the quality or the quantity of the water levels and source of the water? I guess that’s where the Minister talked about working with the Aboriginal governments to see how we can work...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I look forward to the Minister’s discussion to see how we can work out this situation. The fact of the matter is our contract is not working with this government. Something is wrong. The contract isn’t working. Either the dentist or ourselves or the federal government, something is not working. That should tell you enough that we do not have a dentist in the Sahtu.

We have some oil companies in there. Surely this government can talk to the oil company, can talk to the town, can talk to the native organizations, talk to somebody and say let’s get a dentist in here. Let...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The comments I have, I could probably talk for two days on housing, but we only have a certain amount of time here. So I’m going to get right to the point.

The point is that we have a desperate need for good quality energy-efficient homes in our communities. We have people in our homes who are living in houses that were built in the late ‘70s, ‘80s that need attention in terms of the energy retrofits. I have gone to communities in the last month, during the winter, and the houses are not fit for the communities because they’re shifting in the ground and that, and the doors...

This Hydro Strategy. What’s the end result, what’s the objective? What is the objective of this whole Hydro Strategy? We have a natural gas shortage in Inuvik; Norman Wells is turning the taps off. At the same time, they’re also going for new energy there. We also want hydro in our area. So we’re talking about south of here, Fort Smith area, they’ve got some good power in the Taltson, Whati. So there are lots of areas that you can use. So where are we going with this Hydro Strategy? What is the end result so in a year or two years we can say, well, this is what we have for the Northwest...

The Minister has sort of outlined a strategy for the Sahtu in terms of dental services. I want to ask the Minister what, between now and that strategy being implemented, is his department doing to look at the emergency services that people are seeing in Good Hope, Norman Wells, Deline, Tulita and Colville Lake. People are flying out of the communities using their own money and then coming to the department and coming to me and saying can we get this reimbursed, because they need to get the services done right away. What is the Minister doing in this time frame so that people then could not be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to the Minister providing that to me sometime. I certainly appreciate that. I want to ask about this, because at the Grey Goose Lodge in Deline we have a world-class lake there with fish and they don’t really serve the Great Bear Lake trout at the restaurant. We have to go to the store and buy Captain Highliner’s cod fish and chips there. Why are we not having the fish from Great Bear Lake served at that lodge or wherever? Why do they have to go to the Northern Store to buy Captain Highliner’s cod fish? There’s something wrong there.