Norman Yakeleya

Thank you. The Minister has made reference to the document she’ll be discussing. I’m looking forward to seeing the result of the Foundation for Change with the Minister in terms of going forward in terms of establishing... (recording difficulties)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A band called the Bare Naked Ladies wrote and sang a song called, If I Had a Million Dollars. I always liked the song, Mr. Speaker. So, today, for the third time, I want to share with this House my own version.

Mr. Speaker, if I had one billion dollars I would ask the people what best to do, I would fund them for the contributions and their view, I would keep the resource revenue in the North, too, and Ottawa would think that’s cruel. If I had a billion dollars I would speed up the Mackenzie Valley Highway so the Sahtu can greet and treat you to a hot caribou stew too...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to a solid policy where people can go and launch a complaint in their own language. Mr. Speaker, I’m speaking about this person in Fort Good Hope that went to the health centre. She was diagnosed about two weeks later with pneumonia. Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable. We had a death in our community that should not happen. That is unacceptable. So, again, I look forward to a time when the Minister can outline a time where she can state in this House where policies on people with long-term complaints regarding health care can be tabled in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say, on behalf of the Sahtu people, that the Minister of Health and Social Services has been the only Minister that has done a tour with me in the Sahtu of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also want to raise some concerns with our health board, as Mr. Krutko has just talked about one of his communities. Mr. Speaker, in the last couple of weeks, actually the last couple of days and even this morning I received a phone call from one of my constituents and they were having some serious concerns in regard to the operation of our health board in terms of the professionalism that the staff at our regional health board has towards some of our residents in the Sahtu. I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of a type of review or look at some of these types of...

When you have 30 leaders, 30 chiefs sitting down, it’s just obvious that this government should send one or two Ministers to a meeting out of courtesy to listen to the chiefs. Sometimes we don’t go by an agenda. Sometimes the issues come outside the agenda. It’s just obvious that this government, as leaders, attend a national territorial leadership meeting. Again, I want to ask the Premier in terms of not a process, but is there some type of policy that in the future that Ministers would be attending the Dene national chiefs meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, want to just follow up with Mr. Menicoche’s questions in terms of the leadership meeting in Fort Simpson with the Dene Nation national chiefs. Listening from the communities, the reception, what I’m hearing is that it wasn’t very good to have our government Ministers not there at a very important meeting with the leadership. It didn’t seem that this government here cared to sit down with the chiefs, to listen to them, especially on the issue of caribou. It was quite volatile. I want to ask the Premier, the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, in terms of leadership...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Twenty years ago when I first decided to put the bottle away, I sat down with an elder in Tulita and this elder and I were walking in Tulita along the streets there and the elder was talking about some of the old people that passed away in our community. The elder bent down on the ground -- it was during summer -- picked up the dirt, put his hand in the dirt and the dirt started falling out. The elder told me, he said, “this dirt,” he said “that’s my relatives, it’s in our blood,” he said, all the dirt falling out of his hand. I didn’t understand what the elder was...

Sometimes when important meetings are called about such issues as the caribou, it’s very important to people in my region here. It would seem that it would be a given that the Minister of at least ENR or another Minister attend this meeting with some heavy discussions here. Again, it’s called meeting some of the needs of our people here. I would ask again if it’s a policy of this government or Cabinet can be looked at and see if future meetings can be attended by some of the Ministers as a standard policy.

When you have over 30 chiefs sitting there, these are the level of aboriginal governments that are going to be established in the Northwest Territories. We’re asking another government to participate. I’m asking the Minister or the Premier in terms of is it something that is going to be a policy where when you have 30 chiefs sitting down, that the Premier or the Cabinet would send one or two Ministers to be there out of courtesy to sit with another level of government.