Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Four years ago, it was reported in the Globe and Mail newspaper, the Federation of Municipalities of Canada reported that we needed at least $123 billion to repair or replace municipal infrastructure in Canada. It’s beyond our wildest imagination as to where or how Canada will ever find those resources in today’s economy let alone the Northwest Territories communities. We have gas tax initiatives, community planning and infrastructure funding, and in some places, the Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund. However, this is not enough and will never be enough if we really...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice on Thursday, May 19, 2011, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment increases the living allowances set out in Schedule B of the Regulations to the Student Financial Assistance Act by 27 percent.

I look forward to that. It’s good news that the Minister has noted that the Minister of infrastructure along with the honourable Minister to look at how they can support communities. I want to ask the Minister if he’s going to involve the other municipalities in the North to look at how they can get their message to the Minister of infrastructure once the meeting is held with this government to look at dollars that could be supported in the communities for infrastructure such as the potholes or if we want to somehow initiate some partnership on chipsealing some of the communities.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talk about the infrastructure in our small communities and I specifically spoke about the potholes and Fort Good Hope’s chipsealing program that the government has eliminated. I want to ask the Minister of MACA, in light of all the initiatives we have done to empower our communities to make their own decisions and the limited amount of funding the communities have to compete with other priorities, is MACA looking at other options within the municipality in the NWT Federation of Municipalities or even the Government of Canada to look at how we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize the delegation of youth at the Tree of Peace conference: Sheena Kochon from Colville Lake, Gloria Gaudet from the community of Deline, Freda Kelly from Gahcho Kue Dene Fort Good Hope community, and Myles Erb, one of the Canol trekkers from Norman Wells.

I also want to recognize Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew and her husband Leon, and to congratulate Ethel on her achievement of being a Hall of Famer in education.

I certainly look forward to some of those discussions also. I want to ask the Premier: wouldn’t it make sense, I guess, coming back and having some of these analyses before we are done this Assembly, to look at does it make sense to put some of these key basic essential services or programs in some of the communities that do not have them versus some of the ones that are already there?

I guess what I’m looking for is, it’s been four years since I’ve been asking for an RCMP presence in Colville Lake. We’re always being told we have to deal with the fiscal constraint. So I want to see how...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The population of the Sahtu is about 2,645. Of that population there’s about 270 elders; 45 percent of our population is under the age of 24 years old. I wanted to ask the Premier, responsible for the Department of the Executive, if his department has ever done a study or analysis of what type of dollars would it mean for this government if you were to put in some of the essential, basic services in Colville, Good Hope, Deline, Tulita, in terms of bringing up some of the services that we have in other communities that have government programs that people take for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to say that when I visit my communities, and I also heard from many people in the North, they are saying that the alcohol abuse issue in all of our communities is getting worse, and the drug issue amongst our youth is getting worse. It’s actually getting out of hand, as some of the people have said. It’s no longer a Friday or Saturday event. It’s a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday event. Now people are saying it’s getting worse and out of hand because there are younger and younger people in our communities that are using.

Bootlegg...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

1.

Please provide a list of all community parks and territorial parks located in the Sahtu region.

2.

Please provide a breakdown of the budget for the expenditures that will be contributed to all aspects of parks and other tourism initiatives for 2011-12.

3.

Please provide a strategy that outlines a plan to increase the presence of GNWT parks and other GNWT tourism initiatives in the Sahtu for 2011-12.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to the orders of the day, item 5.

---Unanimous consent granted