Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Being Education Week I want to ask the Minister of Education a few questions regarding the Sahtu. Mr. Speaker, education, either you’re on the land, and my people always wanted to be successful even on the land. Now today in the new world of making a living we want to be successful.

Mr. Speaker, on the land we had an open university. In the Sahtu now we have Aurora College centres. I noted that many of our students are now leaving the Sahtu region for other centres for their educational careers. I want to ask the Minister. When he is talking with his colleagues about...

I look forward to at least the Tulita report, Mr. Chair, and hopefully later on the Fort Good Hope report. I wanted to ask the Minister, I know there was an issue with the school in Colville Lake with the washroom facilities and the running water there. I know there was material there, material being ordered to get there and I think it’s already there and waiting to use it. Right now I believe that Colville Lake’s School is still using the honey bucket system and there are other issues that prevent them from hooking up the water lines and the washroom facilities. Can the Minister comment as to...

I raised the point and I noticed that the demolition went very well for the department. They had some good discussions. Actually, a lot of people showed up, surprisingly to the contractor, just maybe because he thought there was going to be maybe a dozen people showing up to work. Actually it was just over 50 people that showed up and wanted to work. So it went very well. So I’d like to congratulate the department for being flexible and open to a good possibility. I believe that the same type of discussions now are happening in Fort Good Hope with the old Chief T’Selehye School and I hope...

Mr. Chair, I want to add my few comments to the department. I do want to say the maintainer’s position was advertised and filled by a local person in Tulita. I’m very pleased with this program and the other communities that do have it. It’s something that we should continue to look at to expand in other communities. It’s a valuable program. I do want to thank the department for going ahead with this and filling these positions as quickly as possible.

As my colleague Mr. Beaulieu indicated, that the Apprenticeship Program is something that’s very valuable in our small communities and that there...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to say to the Minister and staff that we look forward to the increased support that this department is going to receive for the trappers. That just says that we believe in trapping and the way of life and support the Aboriginal trappers’ way of life in general, in terms of the value that the trapping industry brings to the Northwest Territories. I know our furs in the North are one of the most sought after in the world in terms of the quality that we bring to the industry down south, and it speaks a great volume and we have increased the dollars to this...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am so happy we got onto this page here, Mr. Chairman, because it talks about Community Harvesters Assistance Program and I understand the community of Deline was asking for some assistance as the impacts of the caribou and there was a request in to help with the community such as some support went to the Tlicho community on caribou hunts. I want to ask the Minister if the community of Deline have initiated any kind of contact with his office as we already had some discussions with the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources on this issue here to help with the...

The reason why I am asking is just for clarification and the Minister of Health is well aware of this issue and hoping to get a briefing tomorrow with her department that the company that is a Sahtu beneficiary has been operating with our health board in the Sahtu. Their contract, according to them, was taken from them and Stanton is taking over the contract and going to be tendering out that work in the Sahtu. It seems like Stanton is not respecting the memorandum of understanding in this process here, so I am hoping again to get an update from the Minister tomorrow on this issue here. It...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question I have for the Minister is on the memorandum of understanding with the government and the Sahtu Secretariat. I want to ask the Minister if this memorandum of understanding document is distributed to agencies and boards also outside of the Sahtu region that had to deal with businesses in the Sahtu.

Mr. Chair, I wanted to speak to a little bit of my experience on the CANOL Trail. I just love being out there on the CANOL Trail and hoping that we would have a future Do et’q Territorial Park. This area is very special to the people in the Sahtu and I recommend that some of my colleagues here have some time to take a hike on the trail there and see the beauty there. It would be good for all of us to be out on the land there. However, Mr. Chair, there’s a serious threat to the proposed territorial park and that’s the ATVs, the all-terrain vehicles, as I spoke to earlier, that’s destroying some...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple questions on the hydro initiatives. I’m very happy to hear Mr. Deputy Minister indicate the Sahtu hydro. Deline has been waiting for a hydro initiative for about 17 years. The Minister had taken a delegation to Montreal to look at a possibility there and I was hoping that they would start looking at plans, if that’s something that could be used on the Bear River for the community of Deline. That would be something that the people in Deline would be looking forward to.

I want to ask the Minister on a forward going basis, this initiative seems to be viable, it’s...