Norman Yakeleya

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been a busy summer and fall in the Sahtu, from the youth hand games tournament to the retired NHL stars Rob Niedermayer and Brendan Morrison dropping by Deline for some world-class fishing and visiting the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada. It was another successful summer with our ninth annual Canol youth leadership hike. Our Dene and Metis leaders came together and held successful meetings across the Sahtu, including the SSI AGM in Fort Good Hope and recently last week in Deline with our regional Economic Strategy workshop.

Our rivers and mountains are busy...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Minister, to the table. I want to look at the progression of having the required infrastructure in our small communities and I am going to quickly allude to the Sahtu region, to the existing learning centres from Aurora College in our small communities. I have made note of it, Mr. Chairman, that I was in Deline last week at the economic leadership strategy meeting for the Sahtu region. In the economic leadership strategy meeting they talked about the appreciation of the department and looking at the needs assessment and no one was in the Sahtu region today. We...

Just a quick comment, Madam Chair. The Department of Finance – I’ll just look at my notes here – has indicated there are ways we can stop the leakage of the Northwest Territories economy with regards to the policies and our programs.

Is there some movement with regard to how we put some of the plugs in the holes that we have with our government, so we can keep the most money as possible from leaving the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

The communities certainly volunteer their time in some of the Sahtu communities. I guess I’m looking at Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake, if the government or the fire division can take the initiative to ask the communities to come in, look at the volunteers, see if the equipment is up to date. You have the volunteers, the training there, would like to come in. Sometimes the government has to take the initiative on these specific essential services for our communities.

I am asking if the Minister can have a discussion with his fire division and say we need to get into these communities and see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week we had a fire in Colville Lake. A man’s house burnt down and he lost everything. There isn’t a fire truck in Colville Lake, per se, and they used the water truck to try to put the fire out there. Just recently I heard that there’s an elderly man in Fort Good Hope who just lost his house to a fire with the inadequacy of a stable, reliable fire department there.

I want to ask the Minister of MACA in his capacity as the Minister, is this something that he could look at with the issue of the whole fire reliability in the fire department that are working in the...