Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, the previous Member, the Member for Mackenzie Delta, was talking about the issues of the small communities. Certainly, with a lot of aboriginal leaders who have to represent the small communities, that’s something these types of discussions can clear for us in this House along with the regional leaders: how we deal with the federal government on some of these programs and some of these dollars that have been allocated to the Northwest Territories through this government for the people in the small communities.

It kind of gets confusing, complex. I’m looking at it in terms of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our educational boards are doing very well with the limited dollars we have. We are following a national accreditation in terms of what we need to do to pass our students to the next grade.

I feel that within our own schools we are excluding certain professors in our schools, such as the elders. The elders have a wealth of knowledge, yet when we try to get them in there, they’re challenged because of the income. They get dinged by social security, by the federal government. They want to come in, but if they do come in, their pension cheque is going to go down, so it...

I look forward to the information the Minister is going to provide to me and possibly the other Members of the House in terms of the funding that is being provided to the communities and our region.

I’ll ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment: in terms of the authority over cultural programs being implemented into our communities, would the Minister commit to sitting down and talking to the education board to look at how to increase cultural programs into the Sahtu community in order to have a balance of academic and cultural teaching?

I would like to recognize a member of the Tulita people, Mr. Paul Andrew, the main man to hang focus on.

Mr. Speaker, in terms of this meeting with the aboriginal leadership, would we see a game plan within the life of this government on how we approach the federal government to start taking over some of the devolutions, start devolving some of the programs and services? Would we see, for the people of the Northwest Territories, that we do have a game plan — this government, the aboriginal governments and the other governments — in terms of taking over some of the ownership of this land, starting to remove the fingers of the federal government so we can proudly say, “Yes, this is what we did in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I received a letter from the Premier indicating that some time in the next week or so he’s going to meet with the aboriginal leaders to discuss some important issues.

I want to ask the Premier to respond on behalf of my people in terms of meeting with aboriginal leaders. We had a new election that just finished. We have a new government. In terms of the bigger issues in the Northwest Territories — its direction, unsettled land claims, devolution, resource revenue sharing…. The spirit and intent of meeting with aboriginal leadership is to move the agenda of the Northwest...

Again, I certainly appreciate the Minister making efforts to come into Sahtu and meet with the people there, with the appropriate boards and authorities.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Minister if he would consider something like they do in Russia with their education programs. In the mornings they have a culture program, just for the morning. They have dancing; they have languages. In the afternoon they provide the academic structure. I would ask the Minister if that type of consideration could be given to the majority of the people in my region, who are average people who should be looking at...

Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I talked about culture and education. I would like to ask the Minister of Education how many dollars are going into my region, the Sahtu region, into the educational system in terms of teaching and providing cultural opportunities for our children.

Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of days I had the opportunity to look back into our education system and how culture has played a very important role in our lives and how we’ve tried to move culture into the education system to teach our children about our culture.

I had a very eye opening discussion this morning with my wife. My little boy is six years old. We wanted to have him wear a fur hat, but his grandmother said not until he’s past six years old can he wear a fur hat. That’s our way of life as aboriginal people. That’s what we teach our children.

I told my wife, “I wonder how much...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My written question is directed to Hon. Minister Miltenberger, Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Will the Minister develop a plan of action that includes community renewable resource councils as part of types of fuel spill response plans?

Can the Minister provide an explanation as to why it took four and a half hours to have his officials at the scene of the Rocky Island barge fuel spill and an explanation on why they did not stay at the scene until the barge was safely secure from further spills?

Has the department conducted, in conjunction with local...