Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, honourable colleagues. I’d like to ask questions to the Minister of NTPC, Mr. Roland, about the incident that happened in Norman Wells in late December with the outage of power. I want to ask the Minister if he has had a briefing from his officials on an update as to some of the concerns that were stated in the January 7th letter to the Premier about the situation that happened in Norman Wells with the power outage.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people of Norman Wells were in the dark on December 21st not just because the sun went down early that day but because the town lost power around 5:00 p.m. and it was out for almost three hours. The backup generators did not come on.

NTPC dispatched a crew from Fort Simpson but it did not arrive in time. Where was our government?

It was 30 below and the town nearly faced a state of emergency. Where was our government?

Imperial Oil supplied power to Norman Wells and was having problems with its turbine. Imperial Oil has three turbines to support its operations. On...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to tell the Minister, in terms of the budget, there are some good things in the budget that I’m very happy to see in the budget, specifically that speak to the smaller communities and the challenges that they have to deal with day to day and some of the things that would be improving their lives, such as the Small Communities Employment Program, increasing the CHAP -- Community Harvesters Assistance Program -- the education program. Things like that will make a difference in my people’s lives.

I’m really glad to see that this government has implemented a...

Mr. Speaker, in the budget I noticed that there is going to be $300,000 a year towards program performance review of GNWT’s policies on provisions for adequate, suitable and affordable housing in the Northwest Territories. I am not too sure how that money is going to be used in the performance review. I am wondering how this funding here is justified in terms of people are now being asked to be moved out of the house.

There are a lot of empty houses in the Sahtu. I went to Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope and Tulita. There are empty houses there. Here we are spending $300,000 to do a performance...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. February is Heart Month across Canada. People are raising awareness about our health, Mr. Speaker. I think our government is on the brink of a massive heart attack. Mr. Speaker, there are warning signs that a heart attack is coming, like chest pains, discomfort in other parts of the upper body, shortness of breath and other signs that I can compare to what I see going on right here.

I will explain, Mr. Speaker. Let’s start with chest pains. People are leaving the Northwest Territories. There are a lot of heavy hearts. This means less funding from the federal government...

Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I also mentioned about the regional gaps between the regions here. I want to ask the Minister here in terms of I am very disappointed not to see any mention in terms of justice in terms of RCMP in the communities where they do not have a detachment in the seven years since I have been asking this government here and the government before in terms of asking for an RCMP in our communities. Yet when we go back to our communities, that is one of the questions they ask. When are we going to get an RCMP detachment? We hear the same old, same old. I want to ask...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I mentioned about the economic forecast in the Northwest Territories and some of the things that are going to be pressuring this government, pressuring the new government. I want to ask the Minister of Finance in terms of the go-ahead basis in terms of the fiscal forecast in the new coming years. Is the government looking at programs that could be decentralized, taking away things in the region to save on dollars to make things efficient and effective? That is the word that is being used around this table here to ensure that this government here...

We’re just about at the end of our term as legislators. Let’s talk about hypothetical here. There is going to be a federal election in springtime, not too sure. This agreement here has been an issue. We don’t have critical mass in terms of the strength to go ahead with the AIP in terms of making it a truly northern deal. The parameters have been set to negotiate some of the finer details of the agreement. That’s why I use the term “rush,” in terms that it may not be well taken by the Cabinet. However, that’s the way it’s been looked upon by some of the people in my region.

The important...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to say to the people in my region and to a lot of people in the Northwest Territories who contacted me over the last couple of months, I’m certainly glad to be alive today.

---Applause

I want to express my appreciation to the people who have made phone calls to me, who have talked to my wife. I really listened to some of the Members who made condolences to some of their own constituents who have passed away and people who have passed away in the past, and certainly my own people in the Sahtu region, of some of the difficulties that we as people go through when...

I consulted with some of the self-government governments in the Sahtu and I would agree to disagree with the Premier’s comment in terms of taking away some of the existing land claims agreements or self-government issues here. I’ve not yet completed my analysis, but I’m hoping to bring it up sometime within the next couple of days to have a debate with the Minister.

I want to ask the Minister again in terms of bringing forward this and building a relationship with the Aboriginal governments in terms of is the Minister looking at, say, for example, the Dene Nation are going to be having a chiefs...