Norman Yakeleya

In the 2009-2010, you have 276. Sorry. Okay, I’m good.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just on the tourism and parks, I want to ask the Minister, in terms of parks, when I was looking at his magazine that the Minister put out, very nice in terms of explaining the whole parks strategy in the Northwest Territories. It looked at the various different regions and the number of parks that they have. The one, only one park that they have in the Sahtu is the McKinley. I think that was featured in the article, and the other regions have many other parks. So I want to ask if there’s a strategy to have parks in the Sahtu increased maybe to two or three, because we...

The increase to the Community Access Program is a very popular program in my region. I know I had a discussion with a resident in Tulita who took advantage of this program. He was very grateful for this program. I think he was very happy that he’s going to continue doing the work. I think he’s going to be very happy to see the increase in funding to this program, to look at the benefits of the Community Access Program. It also includes the marine services. It’s interesting to see what type of criteria is going to come forward in the application to see where the marine will be into this program...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could I maybe ask the Minister to show her leadership by meeting with the elders council as soon as possible to see if we can get a recommendation as soon as possible, hopefully by the end of this fiscal year so we can start the new year by implementing a process where the aboriginal people can be assured that their foods will be served at the hospital and they don’t have to come to us every day and say what kind of food are they serving us? They want their aboriginal food. I’d ask the Minister if she could look to her department to make a concerted effort to get this...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Premier. I ask this question in all sincerity regarding this project. I do support the business case. You are having aboriginal landowners be a part of it. You don’t have to sell me on the greenhouse and thousands of trucks that go up the winter road. You are looking at a business case here. A lot of people say we’re more focused on the diamond mines than reducing costs or lowering costs to our communities. That’s the political world. It does make a business case.

There are power purchase agreements that need to be negotiated. Mr. Premier has indicated...

Certainly that’s a good number to live up to. I hope this continues or even higher with going up to 100 percent. However, that’s something that we’ll work towards. I like the numbers here.

I wanted to talk about the issue of main street chipsealing. I know the Minister has talked about pilot projects and if it’s successful, of course, he talked about the money. I, too, would like just to comment on this issue here. It is with another department. I don’t think this department has any mandate to do this project, however, I look forward to seeing if this is successful in other regions. Would the...

Mr. Speaker, I also know that the Minister and I were at one time very involved in this type of discussion here. Now, I want to ask the Minister, fair enough in terms of the review from the elders council, if she could seek as soon as possible this review with the elders council specifically to this issue regarding serving aboriginal food at Stanton Territorial Hospital. We have patients coming in from the Sahtu and other surrounding communities. When they’re there today if they have the option of implementing this aboriginal food meals to our people in the hospital.

Mr. Chairman, certainly the Minister is very correct that at one time that we thought that we could -- and when I say we, we in the Sahtu -- thought that with Sahdae Energy could look at the potential of hydro to feed the compressor stations. Using that, however, doesn’t seem to be getting much attraction from either the community or the proponents, so it’s kind of like it’s a no-go there for now. It may change tomorrow. However, there is a compressor station that’s very close to Tulita. It’s almost going to be like a jet engine, I guess, and close to the community. It’s a loud compressor...

Mr. Chairman, it has been a while since I heard everything in sync over here. I have a couple of questions for the Minister. First one is the P3 project policy. I understand that within the Cabinet, probably discussed it that something that we would see in terms of bridges or infrastructure in regards to transportation in terms of we have a look at the P3 policy in terms of going forward.

There are some discussions by my members in the Sahtu to talk about whether the government is interested in a P3 project. They make reference to the Deh Cho Bridge and that project and if there’s something we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Also, Mr. Speaker, the Minister did say that, when he heard the arguments of the high rental costs for the people who are in these public housing units, he doesn’t want to hear them anymore. Would the Minister then commit as part of the review to go into the communities to hear this issue here and have a big part of the consultation process, when he is putting together his team and people to come into the communities that want to know about how this government is going, to look at this issue in terms of going forward to reduce the cost of living for people in our...