Norman Yakeleya

I heard the Premier and the Minister also at some point, and probably some of the Ministers also at some forum and the Assembly, say that we need to keep the dollars in our communities to keep the economy going. Right now, because of the low oil prices, in the Sahtu there is really no racking up of the Husky’s or the Conoco’s, so right now most of the economy is driven by the government infrastructure. However, because of the prices that we are challenged with, is there a policy within the government that says northern contractors will be first priority so the dollars would stay in the Sahtu...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Finance, given the Budget Dialogue 2014 Taking Stock. In the report the Minister gives a good fiscal performance record. Moody’s has given us good rating and we have good fiscal policy.

In his report the Minister talks about the priorities, given the feedback from the people on the priorities, given the sombre realities of slow revenue growth.

Can the Minister tell the House what causes the slow revenue growth? What are the factors, knowing that we have some priorities in our communities? What does the revenue situation look like in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the other comments that the Minister talked about with the people and what I understood from the report is that we were going to have to do some tightening of our belts and taking some responsibility of our lifestyle and the way we live.

Is there any type of initiative from this government going forward to inform our people that there are some things we have to do now, such as stopping drinking, stopping smoking, in order to save money for the government so they can do other things because our health costs are going sky high and those things that people are doing...

The other comments I heard in the discussions in the Sahtu are that we need to do more for our economy. In the Sahtu we have world-class oil and gas there, and they have the technology now in today’s world on the hydraulic fracking and there’s potential there, but we don’t have the infrastructure to get to our oil and gas revenue.

I want to ask the Minister, what are some of the things that he’s doing to see how we can improve our revenue? We need to have the economy to do things like health and social services, hospitals, roads and schools. We need the money.

Can the Minister inform the House...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to just follow my colleague here. I too read the Budget Dialogue Taking Stock report, and the Minister certainly came into the Sahtu with having some of my people sit and listen to the Minister give the current fiscal realities of our government, giving us the realities of the size of our population and the fiscal picture if we don’t get any type of economic development moving in the Northwest Territories.

Some of our regions are wealthy in the resources, and like the Yellowknife area around here rich in diamond mines, there is lots of revenue royalty coming...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to turn back to item 8 on the orders of the day.

---Unanimous consent denied

In my excitement, I said veterinarians. I meant veterans. Veterans, for the record. I thank my honourable colleague, Mr. Hawkins, for reminding me.

The veterans in our communities that have passed have served, and they are in the community. Sometimes they are the forgotten soldiers, and it’s very key and important that in our schools where the young ones look up to community members, it will be something for them to have in our schools, as the Minister, to say we want to designate a special spot in our schools for our veterans to be honoured. Young children will be proudly smiling as they see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, our numbers of veterans from the Second World War and the Korean War are dropping.

Can the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment tell this House of any strategies our school divisions are doing to engage or to bring our veterans into our schools to tell our youth about these chapters in our history?

Our donations directly support Canadians serving and retired veterans and their families by ensuring we never forget the horrors of war but remember what they stood and did for all of us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Next Tuesday is November 11th, Remembrance Day. The year of 2014 also marks the 100th Anniversary of the Great War, the war to end all wars is what they said back in the early 1900s. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, they were wrong.

While we have no veterans from the First World War in the Sahtu, and few from the second, I wish to pay tribute to all the veterans and those who bravely served in the Canadian Armed Forces including people from the Sahtu: Swaine Bavard, Wilbert Cook, Darrel Cook, Wayne Lennie, Hughie Kenny, Stanley Cook, Tim Cook and countless others I have not...