Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I got up this morning at 5:30 to make my coffee, I was pouring the water and was wondering: how safe is this water here in Yellowknife? I thought about that after the coffee was percolating, I drank it and was thinking: how safe is our water in the Sahtu?

Hearing about the fracking issue with oil and gas, who is monitoring our water? I know we have a Sahtu Land and Water Board, we have a Sahtu Land Use Plan, we have a constitutionally protected treaty, called the Sahtu Dene and Metis Land Claim Agreement, we have provisions in there, we have people from the region...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments will focus on the deferred maintenance. As the Minister of Finance indicated to us earlier through his presentation to the Members, we have a huge deficit with the infrastructure in the Northwest Territories in the billions of dollars. We are doing our best to maintain that percentage of power, we are increasing to lower our deficit and it is the aging of our infrastructure.

Has the Minister, along with his colleagues, looked at the other options to look at reducing the amount of deficit we have? I think we are in the billions of dollars. This government here...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, along with Mr. Blake, have a great need for units in our communities. I have had conversations earlier with the Housing Minister in the House and in meetings about the empty units in Fort Good Hope. I know Mr. McLeod talked about the liabilities and the assessments of these empty units and if they could be either turned over to the community or looked at to see if they could be released to the community because there are a lot of houses in Fort Good Hope boarded up with plywood on the windows and doors. I know the community has a great demand for these units that are...

Again – and other Members can contest this – we have seen a lot of action plans. Action plans are sometimes five, 10, 20 years. I am asking this one here for the sake of the people in the small communities, when they come to Stanton Hospital that they can have the traditional foods served to them, not once a week. Residential school days are over. We want them to have it every day. I want to ask the Minister to put some muscle behind the action plan to say this is what we’re going to do: every day of the week we’ll have some traditional food served to our people. If you need some help, we have...

Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to wish the best of luck to this Minister, because in my tenure as an MLA I have been pushing this issue. There has been so much bureaucratic red tape, goobledy gah, that it doesn’t make sense. The people in my communities grew up on the traditional foods, they are in the hospital, what is so simple to boil fish, moose head and give it to them? They grew up on it, but we have all this red tape. The Minister is now going out and saying we’re going to do a review. I have been at this for 11 years, and our people are dying and they want their food in the hospital...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people in the Sahtu from 2006, 2010, had about six Aboriginal businesses, I believe, and later on over the years they have grown to over 30 businesses, maybe more. The economy has slowed down for a time, but they will come back. Believe me, they will come back.

I want to ask the Minister in regard to the activity that’s happened in past years. Can the Minister, through his colleagues, tell us in regard to the income support that this government has given out to our people in the Sahtu region? When the business was booming in the Sahtu, did our income support payments...

Mr. Speaker, perhaps we could look at the macroeconomics or step back from the government coffers and look at the industry.

Can the Minister of ITI tell us how much investment this government is making in the Sahtu with regard to infrastructure or training, compared to the $35 million invested by big oil in the Tulita district?

At student graduations you see a long list of the businesspeople that come to the graduations to contribute to the success and achievement of the high school graduates.

In conclusion, businesspeople are hardworking people who are on a 24/7 call, year after year pursuing their dreams, the dreams that they pass on to children, that if you work hard, you will get what you want. There are failures, but you have to get yourself up off the ground again and put that as part of the value in their upbringing. Let’s celebrate these businesspeople who are there for us in the North.

I want to ask the Minister, given the move to more ownership with the homeowners and purchasing a home, has the corporation looked at one- or two-bedroom units that are simple, that are very small? There’s an advertisement in the Edmonton Sun, a full-page ad on a development called Knotty Pine, I believe. They offer so much for a unit, there’s a couple of units. We thought that would be something that for the homeowners themselves to purchase through a housing program or pilot program.

There are a lot of individuals that are bachelors and a lot of individuals are also staying with their family...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, October 23, 2014, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that, notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on Thursday, October 23, 2014, it shall be adjourned until Monday, October 27, 2014.

And further, that any time prior to October 27, 2014, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during adjournment, the Speaker may give...