Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Chair, certainly the Minister is correct. It’s very difficult to budget for something that you’re not going to expect. I do recognize that and realize that, however, it’s good to know that something that may happen is part of our contingency budget on any type of infrastructure. I think we also experienced this in Fort Good Hope when we had the floods there, not knowing the extent of the floods and they had to work through different departments, and even the federal government, in terms of emergency on floods in the community.

Just again, I know that sometimes, through the paperwork...

Just in closing, I want to say, Mr. Chair, that after being in Tulita for a bit there, I noticed some of the young employees of the hamlet in terms of the water treatment plant operators that...The young guy that I met at the airport in Tulita talked about going to Norman Wells and getting some training to be a certified water plant operator and this type of initiative has really been appreciated by me. This person was very proud to say that he has been certified as a plant operator. It does go a long way with our young people in terms of training them. So I wanted to let the Minister know...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, certainly the Minister pretty well knows which water treatment plant I was talking about and it’s certainly an issue here. Now, I guess, the other one is up in Colville Lake regarding the new water treatment plant and the ability for them to have proper O and M budget to maintain that new highly technical water treatment plant there and meeting the new national standard.

The Minister is correct, you know, if we do want to come up to the new standards of waste and water treatment plants, this money’s got to be attached to it by the federal government to us to...

Mr. Chair, just a question to the Minister in terms of the Tulita tank farm and shelter that they use. The Minister has written to me, I’ve received some good correspondence in terms of the future plans for the shelter or the shack that we have in Tulita for handling the fuel in our community. I’m just trying to get a sense, I know it’s been delayed and I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of the next couple years before you start putting the real building in there, in between there are some safety mechanisms we should be looking at in terms of the quality of this building in terms of...

So I am going to take it that when she says it’s available in official languages, that’s 24/7. Mr. Speaker, I will ask the Minister for the elders, in terms of elders’ care when this vaccine team comes into the communities, that the team would be going to some of the elders’ homes that are unable to get to the health centres, if they want to get their shots.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, from what I’m hearing, the toll system design will be done outside of the GNWT where a private company would design the system and work in conjunction with the Department of Transportation to set up this toll for the Deh Cho Bridge? This is what they’re budgeting for in terms of this work?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister also commit to working with other Cabinet colleagues in terms of how they could probably put together sort of a training package, if that makes more sense in terms of the Department of Education or Aurora College, in terms of looking at a home like this in the Sahtu or any of the other communities in the North that makes sense?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on the Bear River bridge, has the department given any consideration to ask the federal government, the Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation or the Minister of Finance within the federal government if there was a project somewhere in Canada that somehow didn’t make it or had some cancellation, can this bridge be considered as a possibility for funding, seeing if this bridge could get some support from the feds?

Mr. Speaker, the Minister is correct; there was some log construction homes done in the past and, certainly, we learned some valuable lessons in there. I think there are some companies out there now that can design certain log homes and certain people could have certain ideas as to how to build.

I would ask more specifically in terms of Colville Lake, in terms of the trappers, in terms of a similar house that they could have a very basic home that when they want to go out to the trapline, they can close down their houses and come back when they open up. Something very simple, very basic...

The one concern, that I know the department has been in discussions with the leadership in Deline is the realignment of the road from the mouth of Great Bear Lake and Bennett Field, specifically at the mouth of Great Bear Lake where there is a burial site and the department has been talking with the community in terms of moving the road off the area where the burial site is. I know the Minister has had his staff go to Deline and are going to do work.

My understanding is there was some discussion as to how soon this can get done. My previous discussion with some of the officials is that they...