Norman Yakeleya

I’ll look forward to that information. Thank you. That’s all for my questions.

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...

Some of the people that have written to me asked what is the government doing in regard to the anti-fracking movement that seems to be gaining some, rallying around support for a moratorium or banning fracking in the North. So they’re asking what’s going on here, what is the government doing to deal with this, because it could be the death of our economic development in the Sahtu region.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of ITI. I want to ask the Minister of ITI questions for the people in the Sahtu region. What is this government doing to encourage the oil and gas activity in the Northwest Territories?

The department has a proposal that’s written with substantial numbers on there. It’s in front of the Minister. The two other ones the Minister talked about are from Tulita and Fort Good Hope. It’s a concept idea and they are hoping that their proposals will be on their way.

I’m asking the Minister, given that we have one substantial proposal from Norman Wells south on the Mackenzie Valley Highway to start preparing for the Mackenzie Valley Highway – it is coming – given this, hoping we get favourable responses to create a position in the Sahtu, that would be a start of having a regional office...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At one time the Grollier Hall Healing Society was involved in the court process up in Inuvik, and the Grollier Hall Healing Society developed training modules, residential school treatment program models, care givers survivors, community survivors.

Can the Minister go back in history and see if these models can be used today? These were trailblazers in terms of helping the survivors in the communities. Can the Minister look and say, yes, the wheel has been invented, we can use this? Can he get a hold of those models and look for…

I read a report on the impact of residential schools and other root causes for poor mental health in Aboriginal people and students who attended residential schools and the devastating effects is has on mental health. We have reports on the residential school survivors that cannot access treatment programs right now in the Sahtu region, people who are being denied. We cannot close their files because they cannot fulfill a treatment program under the mental health Minister’s Forum on Addictions. We’re failing terribly at the community level.

How many mental health workers are right now working...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the Minister’s Forum on Addictions, in the recommendations…There are over 60 recommendations, 67 to be exact, the recommendations are to help with the interagency of our small communities.

I want to ask the Minister, can he commit to give direction to the health workers under his authority to work with the other agencies, such as the police, the counsellors, to look at how they deal with mental health patients in the community so that they do not fall through the cracks when they need help from a small community perspective?

That’s certainly good news on this side of the House here. I look forward to the Minister’s follow-up.

Lately I’ve been trying to address the problems experienced by the residential school survivors who have been convicted of a violent or sexual crime and who have been turned away from addictions treatment programs. These men are falling between the cracks.

As an alternative, will the Minister commit to funding intensive individual therapy sessions for these men, or looking at a mobile treatment program?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a big bone to pick with the Department of Health and Social Services. The Northwest Territories has the largest per capita population of residential school survivors in the country, and the distressed voices of residential school survivors are constantly ringing in my ears, but the department gives one excuse after another. It says it doesn’t have enough money for a full continuum of mental health and addictions services. Things like one-on-one therapy, made-in-the-North residential treatment and after-care for recovering addicts.

It’s time for a reality check. No...