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. Today I’d like to pay tribute to the late George Blondin. George Blondin was an uncle to many people. He was an uncle to me. I have a statement here I want to make in the House.

George Blondin, a respected elder from the Sahtu, passed away October 12, 2008, from a heart attack and double stroke at the age of 87.

George was a traditional Indian and a skilled hunter and trapper who enjoyed living off the land and water. He’s best known as a storyteller for the Dene culture and tradition. He was an author of three books: When the World Was New, Yamoria and Trail of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I take this as a very good opportunity for this government to participate in this conference put on by the Denendeh Development Corporation and have major businesspeople coming to Yellowknife to talk about their businesses and share their success stories.

I’d like to know: will the report from this conference come back from the Minister of this government and say, “This is what we learned, this is what we wanted from it, and this is why we want to introduce it into our policies after some discussion”? I think this is key, and you certainly have my support. Would we get a...

I’ll be happy to receive that package from the Minister in terms of all this. This is a very worthwhile, golden opportunity in that we have strong aboriginal people coming together.

We talk about the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We talk about the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. We talk about the hydro potential. We talk about partnerships with groups with unsettled land claims that have negotiated contract policies and memorandums of understanding with the Government of the Northwest Territories. You have unsettled claims.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister: is this a golden opportunity for this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister for that commitment. Could the Minister commit herself to also looking at initiatives such as the Strategic Initiative Committee on Refocusing Government and various options to again work with boards and agencies on how to deliver services like this to our community members, especially seniors?