Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The capital infrastructure for colleges, under the budget there’s minor capital upgrades to various college facilities. I noticed that in Yellowknife Campus or college, a lot of students from the Sahtu have come to go to school here and also they have used their facility to upgrade or attend some of the courses here. Some of them have vehicles, and parking space is very limited around the college campus. Also, winter is coming and they use their vehicles to go back home and they need proper plug-ins or insulation at this campus. I’m not sure what the process is or if the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That’s quite a considerable amount of dollars here in terms of what the Minister has quoted on a five-year plan. I ask because of some of the infrastructure that’s desperately needed in our communities. We are hoping to see them come onto the capital plan in putting some good investment in there. I just wanted to thank the Minister for those numbers and the significance of the type of investment we need in the NWT in terms of our infrastructure within the GNWT.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask the Minister in terms of the infrastructure investment, in terms of all of our infrastructure and the amount of investment that we are putting in this capital plan here, in terms of the overall infrastructure with his department. What is the percentage number in terms of our investment? Are we at 10 percent? What percentage, if you have a percentage number? Ideally, we want to invest into our infrastructure, we want to invest, say, 100 percent; however, with the competing departments and dollars for infrastructure, we can only invest 10 percent of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask the Minister about support for our agencies in the department within the government. In terms of electronic support and infrastructure, I know that there is some interest in electronic infrastructure for our health care operations in our small communities and with the whole accessing more infrastructure for our health centres. I’m not too sure if this is the place where I can ask about this in this department, if this department is heading up looking at putting in stronger infrastructure into our communities that require them, especially for our health...

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

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently the Sahtu Secretariat and Canada resolved a legal matter involving Canada’s obligations to consult with landowners when issuing prospecting permits in the Sahtu Settlement Area. Can the Premier advise if the GNWT has assessed the risk of single legal actions if the GNWT continues with the execution of the draft AIP?

Certainly, Mr. Chair, these funds are application-based in the school. I want to ask, in terms of the application, when there’s these small communities that have activities that are in their region or in and around their communities, that certainly where there’s much needed skill to be learned there. Is this how this works in terms of the funding application?

I know that at one time the schools in a southern area were building housing units for some of the elderly people and these grade 10, 11, 12 students earned credits on the courses they had to take. Right now, what I’m finding out is that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been noted that the draft AIP has been posted on CBC for the whole public to take their own view and to have their own interpretation of the AIP. Mr. Speaker, I was meeting with the K’asho leadership in Colville Lake and Fort Good Hope and, Mr. Speaker, much to my surprise, they were in shock and awe in terms of the agreement. So I wanted to ask the Premier if he can advise the House as to who and when the decision was made to exclude the K’asho Gotine in the process of entering into bilateral negotiations with Canada.

Certainly the Minister is correct; he did hear it from the aboriginal chief at the initiative symposium we had in the Sahtu on our leadership’s wishes. What in the capital infrastructure, capital planning dollars, study dollars, needs to keep the process to look at a planning study or needs assessment that would, you know, you have to do one step at a time to have a university in the North or a Sahtu institution of technology training centre in the Sahtu off and running. What would it take for this Minister to say yes, let’s put this into a five-year capital plan or even a 20-year capital plan...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the K’asho Gotine Dene of Fort Good Hope and the K’asho Gotine Dene of Colville Lake, which are the Dene and Metis of the Sahtu land claim, hold fee-simple title to approximately 13,000 square kilometres of land within the Sahtu Settlement Area with the Northwest Territories. The K’asho Gotine Dene negotiated the Minister’s access and benefits agreements with the proposed development with the K’asho Gotine district of the Sahtu Settlement Area.

Mr. Speaker, the draft proposed AIP suggests that the Government of the Northwest Territories would be assigned law...