Norman Yakeleya

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...

Certainly communities and the regions are appreciative. Can I get a breakdown of the amounts for the groups that he listed off?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few questions on the benefits. The Sahtu has a special day designated as Sahtu Day, June 23rd. A lot of employees from the Government of the Northwest Territories are Aboriginal and Sahtu beneficiaries and this comes up every year in terms of them taking this day off. They are either told to take it through other benefits that they have incurred or they are asked to look at other initiatives. Is this something that the government would look at to honour Sahtu land claim day because if it hasn’t, then this year it will come up again. Some of the employees would...

I appreciate the Minister’s offer and I would take him up on his offer. I want to ask the Minister also on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Office, we certainly want to continue to support the operation and look at where they can help support communities along the valley that look forward to training. It takes awhile to be an apprentice, pipefitter or any type of trade that would be required for the pipeline. That’s part of what we’re looking for in the support to get our communities up and trained to prepare for a pipeline, if there’s going to be a pipeline. I want to ask the Minister if that’s...

We certainly look forward to that. I know that in Deline they’re asking about it so hopefully if they really, really do well, everybody in this House will be buying Deline fresh eggs and having some turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner. I just wanted to say that to the Minister to look at other initiatives in our region.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask the Minister, in regards to the Government of the Northwest Territories socio-economic agreements with industry and the monitoring of these industry activities, and I want to ask, with the socio-economic agreements with the mines, I have been approached by one employee that was working at the mines and he wanted me to check and see when there are layoffs and people are asked to leave work for whatever reasons from the mines, a statement that was made by this individual was that they lay off the Aboriginal people first before they start laying off other...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The concerns again brought to me by the elders of the community of Colville Lake, they’ve stated to me many times they’re concerned about wildlife technicians, biologists using the collars to monitor the movements of caribou, especially the ones that we use in the Sahtu, Bluenose-East and Bluenose-West, and that the feeling that their method of traditional knowledge is not taken very seriously as the aircraft and collars are used on caribou to give credence and evidence to the scientific papers on caribou. There is some value to it. Again, it rubs against the respect for...

The communities, through the Aboriginal governments and other non-government agencies and volunteers, also support the veterinarians that come up from the University of Calgary along with ENR, because there’s no budget line item for this type of support they are doing, because it’s good business, it’s because you’re helping dogs, you’re helping dog owners, you’re doing a service that’s greatly appreciated by the people in Good Hope, the Wells, Colville, Deline, Tulita. And that if we have a bad year then, you know, it’s a discretionary funding.

I think if the Minister maybe within his...

So in a few months I certainly hope we have a lively debate on this program review in terms of this issue. Hopefully we’ll formulate a new policy in terms of the harvesters and the land and area that we’re talking about that we’d see it before the end of the life of this government. If this has been an issue in the past, I can only imagine the departments have been working quite creatively to put this compensation to test in terms of working with the harvesters on areas that have been damaged by forest fires. Thank you.