Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I travel to the communities in the Sahtu, the people talk about help they need at the community level with their families, especially with the elderly people. They talk about their hope that they have some support with wellness workers. They thought that when they had the Sahtu health board, they would get this kind of help. They thought that with the health board they would initiate on the land cultural programs. They thought that people in Colville Lake would get help, and they would have on the land programs for the people and the issues they had to deal with.

Mr...

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister inform this House as to the status of the water resource management strategy? When can we see the final version?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke about the Mackenzie River and the protection that is going to be required through some avenues with the territorial government and the federal government and also with the Protected Area Strategy. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for ENR: in terms of living up to the commitments of the Protected Area Strategy, what is the current status on the Mackenzie Valley five year action plan?

Thank you. I look forward to that information. I hope I can get it before we leave the House on October 24.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the responses. My question now is going to focus on education in terms of the capital infrastructure for the community museums.

The communities at times have seen not much of a contribution, even though they appreciate and are looking at ways they can get involved. So I would also ask the Minister responsible for the museums if I can get some detailed information on what they are allocating to the community in terms of community museums.

I have to reconfirm those facts with my community. I’ll see what their interpretation is or how they got the sense of how this work was progressing in Fort Good Hope, because I certainly have a different opinion hearing from my community in Fort Good Hope. I have to go through that process, and I have to follow through later on in terms of the response I got from the deputy minister.

Mr. Chairman, I want to look at when we have construction like that in our communities. As I said before, sometimes these constructions…. We certainly appreciate it, because it’s needed in the communities. The...

Mr. Chairman, the community of Colville Lake certainly appreciates the portable school that they have and the work that the department is doing. Because it’s fall time now, they want to look at some of the preventative heat loss in terms of having the department supply some skirting around it. Time is of the essence, and they were asking when they can see a certain time frame as to when this project could be implemented in Colville Lake.

Mr. Chairman, as the Minister agreed, there was a real deal at the time that the community wanted an additional gym. It couldn’t get it, because they said they didn’t have the money. It wasn’t budgeted for. If you want the stage for the community, you will have to put in an extra $400,000. Thank God the New Deal came in. That was the real deal to give the community: some money.

The community as a whole between the three organizations, the three governments, said: we want to support education for children; the school needs a gymnasium, a proper gymnasium; we will pay for it; we will help with...

The policy of the small communities committee in terms of its membership as initiated by Cabinet…. I’ll ask the Premier if he has the authority to say that this committee needs to be implemented. Does the Priorities and Planning committee need to initiate it to get it going?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to differ with the Minister in terms of the best people and water rights down here in the Mackenzie River, here in the communities. They live off the water; they know their water.

I would like to ask the Minister about the Mackenzie River being labelled as a sensitive cultural, spiritual heritage site that needs to be protected right down the Mackenzie Valley, because we are at ground zero of all the mega developments that are even on the table right now. I would ask the Minister if he would see that the Mackenzie River gets full — the highest — protection...

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy and very proud when this Assembly is making first commitments to protect the water in the Mackenzie River, and also the 15th Assembly passing the motion saying it’s our right; it’s in our blood down in the Mackenzie Valley.

In terms of protection, I would ask the Minister: would he work very closely with his federal counterparts and the aboriginal groups to have the resources there for the Protected Area Strategy group to implement a critical component of their work in terms of protecting our land and our water in the Mackenzie Valley before development?