Norman Yakeleya

I certainly agree with the Minister in terms of his explanation to the ground ambulance services. I bring this up because one of the Rangers in one of my ridings said, you know, why don’t we utilize the Rangers, get them the training, get some equipment, if there’s an accident on the winter road they can call one or two or three or four Rangers together, a quick call, small communities, with the proper supplies and equipment. It wouldn’t take very much and they could go and help our communities.

So I’m not too sure if this could be answered tonight, but have some consideration because the...

Now, is this Arctic Energy Alliance, are they looking to maybe move out of Inuvik and come into the Sahtu region even though sometimes the Inuvik region does include some of the communities in the Sahtu in terms of their authority? Is that something that the Minister is going to look at in terms of asking the Arctic Energy Alliance to start to probably regionalize their offices? Get out of Yellowknife and go into the communities.

I’m just going to make the presumption that the increase of positions is this three officer youth positions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have comments for the Minister and his opening comments. Most of the communities, when we go out to communities, always have some issues. I think we are involving community governments where community governments want to have more control. I think this government and this department is doing that in terms of involving more authority to the community governments. One of the unique things about the community governments is that they have band governments also. You get into that issue of authority and jurisdiction. Some communities have band governments. Some of them...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could I ask the Minister if he could also look at the communities in the Sahtu? Because the Sahtu has the highest adequacy percentage in the Northwest Territories with 41 percent. Could he look at it in terms of bringing down this number in terms of the adequacy means no bathroom, running water, no hot water, plumbing and electrical issues? Could he look at that in terms of bringing those numbers down in terms of a commitment that he made earlier to the MLA for Nahendeh?

Mr. Chair, just more of a comment here in terms of the programs that are under this budget here in terms of the homeownership entry level program. I just like to give a comment to the Housing here in terms of these programs. The STEP program, the HELP program and the other programs, they offer the PATH program, the CARE program. I think that’s probably one of the best written up programs I’ve read. I had the opportunity to read the STEP program. It’s dynamite stuff that’s there that should be going to the communities. Hopefully, it will be somehow, when we have aboriginal peoples taking these...

One comment I heard at the Northern House was they hope they can come to Yellowknife, jump on a plane, and visit a diamond mine. It really intrigues them, these diamond mines. That was one comment. We’re getting that type of interest at Northern House. I want to ask the Minister with respect to promoting the Sahtu that it would be nice to have these German people hike the CANOL Trail, jump in a boat, go up the Bear River to visit the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada here, as we promoted it. It took a lot and had a lot of interest from the southern papers there in terms of this claim to fame...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of the LHOs’ ongoing operations, I made comments in the opening of this committee here with the transfer of the new program, the old new, whatever you call it from...(inaudible)… Is there somewhere in here that that’s going to be the transfer? So is housing now going to be assuming the control or the responsibility of the…(inaudible)…program?

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of ITI in terms of our recent meetings down in Vancouver and more particularly to the media people that were interested in the Northwest Territories such as the German newspaper and the Chinese television people there. They talked about the Northwest Territories and particularly important to the media person from Germany in terms of the tourism. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of the feedback that we received that was very positive from the media outlet in terms of promoting a place to visit, the Northwest Territories, is the Minister taking...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, colleagues. Mr. Chair, I have a motion, a committee motion here.