Norman Yakeleya

I wasn’t aware that Cooper had made the attempt to look at a regular service schedule, on demand, and...(inaudible)...maybe unfeasible and the community, the region, I’ll have to go back and check and see if it’s something that they want me to continue to push from this government here to say we want to look at this. Maybe the department may not want... I mean, a lot of things that we don’t want them to do they still do. So we have to have a little bit of flexibility there in terms of what we’re asking for. I will just leave it at that and I will do some of my own checking and my own research...

Mr. Chairman, in terms of the revenue source, are we, specifically in this city, the Yellowknife Airport, revenue in terms of the leases and the area? Are we seeing that we had enough so potentially we could even publish support if we provide the rent there as the reason we are late there? We could say that this airport could be self-sufficient if we did look at it from a business case point of view. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I’m going through this park in detail because I want to make sure that I have some clear answers from the Minister in terms of the parks here. I certainly appreciate the Minister’s comments to look at other parks in our region.

I really wanted to also say probably to the Minister that we appreciate the work that he’s doing in terms of having this CANOL Trail designated. It’s world-class and a beautiful park. I just hope and wish that someday the Ministers can actually walk on the trail there and experience it themselves.

I want to say that I’m hoping that the Minister can make some...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of forward thinking here, some of the residents in the Sahtu are asking if or when the bridge is built and the Deh Cho Bridge is finished and built and people are using it, is there any possibility of this department looking forward in terms of maybe having a ferry service from Wrigley or wherever to Tulita or the Wells area? They like to come down to drive on the highway there. I know it’s something that they could look at, look at the cost or whatever, or at least do an analysis of it and say, yes, it’s a good thing or, no, it’s not a good thing. I know they...

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...