Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. So, in 2015-16 the needs assessment and analysis will be done for Deline palliative care beds in that community and that discussion will come forward for discussion for the ’15-16 infrastructure. Is that correct, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This past weekend, specifically yesterday, the grounds in Yellowknife were hopping. About close to 500 people from the Sahtu region live in Yellowknife. So, yesterday they had their first ever Sahtu Dene-Metis beneficiary gathering for all beneficiaries that live here in Yellowknife. People come here for school, to raise their families, for work, whatever.

It was the unofficial Sahtu day here in Yellowknife. It was a gathering of the large families that came together yesterday. The board of directors said, you know, we have close to 40 percent of listed beneficiaries...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have the pleasure of recognizing the leadership of Deline in the gallery this afternoon. Yesterday we had some beautiful music from the Deline drummers at the celebration here. Of course, Deline is the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada and Deline is the place where you want to catch the largest, biggest trout in the whole wide world. I want to recognize the leadership, the negotiating team, the elders from Deline who are here on this historic day for themselves. They also brought along a friend, I think, one of the leaders from Colville Lake, Mr. Joseph Kochon...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation. The Minister of Transportation and I had a visit in Deline last year and we talked about the safety of the lake and we did talk about the concept of the road going around a section of the lake to hook up to the winter road on the other side of the Bear River.

Is that concept still alive within this department as to the wishes of the people of Deline?

Mr. Chair, in the organization chart I did a little creative drawing and I put in a little box that says superintendent for the Sahtu. It’s really simple, Mr. Chair. Again, just to ask the department to keep that in mind, to consider being creative with that type of thinking.

I do want to say, in all seriousness, my appreciation for the winter roads we have open and the contractors this winter. The contractors have done an excellent job, despite the amount of money that they need. I think all the contractors on our winter roads in the North do a really good job. We have probably the best heavy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to ask the government – I’m not too sure if it’s the Minister of Finance – the question is on our strategy working to increase the population and bring 2,000 people in by 2019. That’s a couple years away. Is it working?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about the importance of bringing our people back into our communities for their last days on this earth. I recall a time when I had a discussion with people in Colville Lake when they had an elderly person come to Yellowknife. In Colville Lake the people were kind of missing him. So I sat with the leadership and they were asking this older man to come back to the community. They were saying it was like they took a book of knowledge, an encyclopedia out of our community. They said this old man had this special knowledge with the animals and it’s like we...

With the elements being there and the work that the Ministers are doing, and that’s quite an ambitious project to work on, I want to ask the Minister, what’s the backup plan not meeting the goal here of 800 persons per year and raising the population in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, are there any updates to the requests for the Deline palliative care bed study that they have been asking for, for some time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank Mr. Dolynny and Mr. Nadli for bringing this motion to the floor. I think this motion should be looked at sometime in the future, not today. I have thoughts on it and I don’t think that at this time a motion like this is needed in the Northwest Territories, especially in our small communities. I can see it in the larger centres like Yellowknife. You have a lot of people coming in here and meeting all the time and we don’t have that opportunity. In our small communities, we know who is actually coming to meet with even ourselves as MLAs. We can almost be...