Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to acknowledge one of my constituents from Deline who was recognized this past week as the recipient of the Northwest Territories Fire Service Merit. This officer is Constable Kirk Hughes. Constable Hughes, amongst his duties as an RCMP officer, also serves as a volunteer firefighter in Deline. Constable Hughes, along with the other recipients, is receiving the NWT Fire Service Merit and they must be recognized as people who give their time to a worthy cause to the people of their communities. Thank you to all of them for serving as firefighters.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to ask the Minister for the improvements to the road licensing operations, the infrastructure type of support systems, they could help in our small communities where sometimes the contracts are interrupted because of a lack of financial appetite to operate these important services. However, I wanted to ask the Minister if that is something that could be looked at in this infrastructure budget. How do we set up something that the communities can take more advantage of? Because sometimes these operations are costly and their offices actually shut down until...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to ask the Minister on infrastructure and the federal government’s stimulus plan and if the Minister has any type of indication as to any type of further costs, potential federal funding to improve our highways, improve the bridges and the airports, if there’s any type of discussion to improve our infrastructure other than we know the Mackenzie Valley Highway PDRs are completed, or some of them are completed, and if there’s any type of requirements that they’re going to put on our infrastructure to meet or match the federal government’s requirements that may not...

Thank you, Madam Chair. My comments would reflect around the Mackenzie Valley winter road, and the airports in my community, and some of the support equipment that needs to be looked at within the Department of Transportation to support the operations of our small airports and our winter road.

I want to thank the department at this time for their flexibility and support in the construction, the final steps of the Colville Lake new airport. The people there are very happy that the department was opening up to have most of the people and their equipment in Colville Lake working on the airport. It...

Thank you. I trust the Minister will work hard on behalf of the people in Colville Lake and the people without RCMP detachments who are looking to you for that type of support. Will the Minister work with his officials to look at increasing the patrols to the communities such as Colville Lake and bump up the security safety mechanisms so that the people know that they can sleep in peace?

I look forward to the information coming forth from the Minister. I want to ask the Minister, in his role as the lead Minister for the security and safety of the people, has his department put together a long-term strategic plan and put RCMP detachments in the 10 communities who do not have one today?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has indicated that there is some initiative to look at what type of RCMP officers they could have without any communities that have RCMP members. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of the creativity that he brings or his colleagues bring, to ensure that the people in Colville Lake know when they go to sleep at night there is someone there that they can call and respond as quick as possible. I want to ask the Minister what other ideas he can bring to Colville Lake to ensure the safety there.

I want to make a few comments to this infrastructure here. I’m very happy to see that the Minister has seen some fortitude to put in some preliminary work with the Canol Heritage Trail. I know I would have liked to see more development; however, they are in a very complex process right now with the Canol Heritage Trail and the Doi T’oh Canyon Park and the Doi T’oh Territorial Park. They are working closely with the federal government; however, the government has agreed to look at how they continue working in the preliminary stages to begin developing the heritage trail that is in the books...

Would the Minister come to Colville Lake and work with the people of Colville Lake on a specific type or if there’s a protocol that we can use to help the people know that their issues, when the call gets into a detachment, that it’s taken seriously and some issues that can be resolved as quickly as possible so the members know that their community, their people will be safe?

At this juncture of our budget approval, it’s very hard to accept Mr. Neudorf’s answers on my question. Surely he must know the numbers that they estimated. He’s got a lot of smart people in the department; they have consultants. They surely must know what they’re paying or what they estimate for anything like this to go forward.

I can’t believe the government’s going to operate their operations on this type of answer to my question; a simple question. He said this is about $1.7 million to complete rebuilding the whole system. He’s saying that southern institutions, southern people have the...