Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ramsay asked the question for me.

The last question will be to the Minister regarding his department working with the federal government, Sahtu and Gwich’in on the land access information for companies and people coming into our region. Sometimes they are not aware of the agreement or not interested in looking at how we access our land and they should know. I think there is someone working in this department on land access pamphlets. I will ask the Premier if he can give me an update.

No, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just in my own region with regard to implementation in the Sahtu Land Claims Agreement, are we... I am hearing we are slow on implementation. I have heard it’s a difficult implementation, from not only us but the federal government. Agreements have been in place for 15 years and we are finally starting to see some implementation here. Are we on par in terms of implementation specific chapters of the Sahtu Land Claims Agreement?

Mr. Chair, I’d like to say that’s good news and I hope we see the bill sooner than later. I wanted to ask the Minister about the uncertainty of some of the initiatives that are happening in the North regarding infrastructure on projects. Does that, from a Minister’s point of view, the department’s point of view, throw some type of wrench into our financial fiscal outlook or framework in terms of what you’ve presented us here? Is it possible that you could be presenting something totally different in two or three months down the road in terms of what you have before us here? Thank you.

Just one question if I can see if I can get a satisfactory answer, then I’ll be done. I wanted to ask the Minister about the negotiations. In the details he had talked about the Northwest Territories realizing the economic potential in the Northwest Territories. Does the Minister have an idea or assessment as to the economic potential in the North right down the whole valley? I know some organizations have put some numbers to it, you know, in the amount of millions or billions. Has this department put some numbers to the potential for economic potential in the North? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I wanted to ask the Minister in regard to his comments on page 2 of 2. He mentioned something about releasing a public discussion paper on establishment of an NWT Heritage Fund. Does the Minister have a date as to when this is going to be released to the public for discussion and what type of plan he has to have a discussion with the public on this? Is it going to be through various forums?

From this side here, I certainly appreciate the Minister’s willingness to look at this. There are certainly no guarantees in any type of reallocation or jigging of the numbers here or even to increase it. So I do appreciate his openness to see if we can get some support to have a look at it and maybe come back in the coming year to see if we can do something with this.

I do want to talk to the Minister regarding the special event funding for aboriginal organizations. Is it okay for the Minister to provide us with a list of the type of organizations and funding we can have? I know some of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to let the Assembly know that I certainly wanted to say how pleased I was with the introduction of the first Elders’ Parliament that you’re going to have this year. I think it’s a unique approach. It gives the elders who are going to participate in the parliament a sense of what us young leaders go through, a sense of the work. I think this is a good initiative that should be successful. You always have something to learn and it will be very good. I was talking to some of my elders in Deline over the past weekend and they’re quite excited about this. So I think...

We’re probably going to get a similar answer if I ask the question, but I have been asking it ever since I’ve been here. About the Metis core funding, I think it’s averaged out. I think it’s $13,000, if I can recall. Every year this funding has not increased. That’s one of the complaints I get from my region, is that the Metis get core funding. I know it’s a nice thing to do for this government here. There really is no funding for them except some Metis are under a land claim settlement and they have other kind of funding. This one for the GNWT, I guess it’s a nice gesture to recognize the...