Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier of the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Premier regarding the draft Devolution and Resource Revenue Sharing Agreement-in-Principle in terms of allowing the people of the Northwest Territories ample time to look at this deal. As has been noted by CBC, parts of the deal are out there. Can we have our constituents in the regions look at this deal to see if it’s something they want to join with the Government of the Northwest Territories to initial at the start of the negotiations? I want to ask the Premier if his Cabinet has considered...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Mr. Chairman, the issue that I want to bring up on this part is with the winter roads within the Sahtu in terms of the amount of traffic that potentially could happen this winter, and past winter in terms of the conditions of the roads and the amount of signs that were supposed to be there. Sometimes these signs have a habit of falling off the trees or on the ground. I want to ask the Minister regarding securing more safety devices so this issue is upgraded to more of a standard of road safety measurements of our highways in the North here and give some more attention to the ones in the region...

Mr. Chairman, I want to say to the Minister of Transportation that I wanted to express my appreciation to his staff and work with the communities of Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope and Tulita in terms of the successful completion of the runway extension in Tulita, and working on Colville Lake while it is still in the process, and then working a little more on Fort Good Hope in terms of their runway extension. I wanted to ask the Minister that future working relationships within our region continue and, more specifically, with Deline in that they’re asking about their runway and, of course, there...

The approach to the Mackenzie Valley Highway has been long discussed within these Assemblies and the people down the Mackenzie Valley. Certainly we recognize that the federal government will play a huge part in terms of constructing this road here. I look forward to the day when this government and this Minister can bring forward a P3 discussion or we can have some discussions as to the possibilities out there in terms of building part of the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We have yet to see a P3 discussion or paper in front of this Legislative Assembly to look at infrastructure such as this. So we...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, colleagues. I want to ask a question to the Minister in terms of the project description report funding and the push to construct the Mackenzie Valley Highway sometime within this century here. Can the Minister indicate the status of the project description funding and hopefully where that would carry us through to iron on the ground in terms of actual construction of the highway with reference to his exchange with Mr. Krutko on the piece of infrastructure that’s going to be needed on the Bear River Bridge to go ahead? Are those dollars identified in here...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Premier and Mr. Krutko have exchanged on some of the history that went on with the devolution and resource revenue sharing beyond 1988 and from there today where we have an initial agreement that we’re discussing whether we sign or not sign, Mr. Speaker, in terms of that history it also shows that the government has also changed its views in terms of the majority of aboriginal governments on board to the full support of them to some support. Now it seems like we have a government-to-government relationship and I’m afraid that this initial agreement will not...

I’m asking the Premier in terms of some innovation and thinking outside the box regarding the established guidelines and policies to bring this significant deal to the peoples’ front doors and asking if this is a deal that we want to sign on with everybody in the Northwest Territories. I have the K’asho leadership coming here today and I’m meeting with them after this House session here today. I need to let the K’asho leadership know. What should I tell them about this deal?

We have 13 days, the Premier has indicated, to get responses from the aboriginal leaders; 13 days to tell my leaders what...

I say to Mr. Premier, give the people the respect and dignity to have a say in their destiny. Give each resident in the North the opportunity to voice their opinions on this deal.

We must move forward on the path of unity and sometimes this takes time. That’s what we have today: time to know how this deal is going to go down in history to be proud or to be chapters of regrets. I ask the government to take their time on this deal.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to speak about the draft devolution resource revenue sharing deal.

Imagine my surprise that parts of this significant landmark for the Northwest Territories was quoted on CBC last Friday. Imagine, we could be at the very brink of moving closer to a provincial type of government and we don’t know yet 100 percent if all the aboriginal governments are on side with us. Are we going to initial this historical deal with or without them? Is this not a hassle-free approach to becoming a legitimate-sized government? Will this approach leave out the recognitions of...