Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table photographs of the Tulita health facility showing some mousetraps and other things of interest.

I would also like to table a document, called “Oil and Gas: Contaminated Drinking Water Linked to Faulty Wells, Not Fracking.”

In dealing with the small business people in the Sahtu, there are figures here that I have that show the income support rates have fallen by 50 percent in Tulita in 2012 and 20 percent in Norman Wells. It’s because of these small business people that hire people in our communities to work because of the oil and gas exploration.

I want to ask the Minister, given these kinds of stats and figures that we have produced by the government, are there opportunities for the business people in the Sahtu so that they can continue to keep their businesses alive, sort of have it on the health respirator so...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In support of the business people in the Sahtu, I want to ask the Minister of ITI, given that we have we have a smorgasbord of business people in the Sahtu, some with the traditional economy, some with the wage economy, and in light of the slowdown of the oil and gas, because that’s been the economic driver for the past couple of years of committing and spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the Sahtu, has this department taken on the task of doing sort of a lessons learned from this type of activity, because we’re hoping that the companies will be coming back but...

Mr. Chair, I just want to make a comment to the Minister. When I met with the Colville Lake leadership and they talked about the Fur Program, they are very pleased. Just before the opening of this Assembly, I contacted Colville Lake and I met some of them in Norman Wells and they are really excited. It was just like Christmastime because the snow was coming and they were getting ready and will be going out to the traplines and setting them up, and they said there’s a lot of excitement in the air. That attests to what the Minister says and what the department is saying about the furs that the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister inform the House and inform the people in the Sahtu as to when will the baseline studies of the water use or the water monitoring in the Sahtu, because there are concerns about groundwater consequences of the technology of hydraulic fracking.

That’s an impressive list of monitoring for water quality in the Sahtu. The Minister rapidly fired off 13 sites in and around the communities that are looking forward to it.

I want to ask the Minister, in our land claims under Chapter 20 is the water rights and management of the Sahtu Land Claim Agreement. Section 21.8, I believe, talks about the quality and the quantity of altering our water in the settlement area.

I want to ask the Minister, are there increases to ongoing funding to know that this provision of the chapter will be honoured and respected and enforced if need be.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too want to recognize the Aurora College students. We had a meeting some months ago and it was very informative, and I’d like to say how much I appreciate listening to them.

I’d also like to recognize Kevin and Wendy, Mr. Bouchard’s constituent and constituency assistant, in the gallery.

More importantly, I’d like to recognize the special guest we have sitting in front of us, Mr. Whitford. From time to time there are certain words that people tell you that continue to grow on you, and thank you, Tony, for those kind words that you gave me a long, long time ago.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m pleased to have the department before us today. They have quite a huge infrastructure budget. I want to make my comments specifically to the small communities I represent in the Sahtu.

I’m looking forward to the day when the infrastructure in the small community of Colville Lake will be improved, the renovations of the health centre. I know it took me awhile, with the help of the previous Health Minister, to have running washrooms in the facility in that community in the health centre. I had several Ministers in there before. They came, they saw and they left. They...

With the government and with the contributions that have been happening in the Sahtu with regard to the funding and the specific sites, I want to ask the Minister, given that Imperial Oil’s 10-year water application licence is going through, they are going to take out billions of litres of water, run it through their system, bring it back, pour billions more back into the Mackenzie River that will flow down towards Fort Good Hope and Tsiigehtchic and the other communities along the river system.

I want to ask the Minister, knowing this and knowing that 720,000 tonnes of hazardous material was...

In my Member’s statement I talked about the water, and I want to ask the Minister about the water usage. The oil and gas sector has over 100 applications for water permits. We know Canada has tried to cut back on the monitoring.

Do we have the capacity to take over these positions and who are our front-line monitors? ENR has the responsibility. I wanted to ask the Minister in regard to these two questions.