Norman Yakeleya

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...

Also, we have a saying in the Sahtu: fought over many years of our own sovereignty, institutions and culture.

Will the process of the regulations of oil and gas in the Northwest Territories respect the sovereignty of the Sahtu people, their settled land claims, the regulatory boards that we have? Will this process respect that there are land claims in place, there is sovereignty in place, there are processes of regulating oil and gas through the co-management boards that we have set up? Would that be respected?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to congratulate our Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment on being named the president of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region and all the work that his department is doing with the geoscience office in undertaking of forming of the office of the regulator of the oil and gas operations in the Northwest Territories.

I want to ask the Minister of ITI to update the House briefly as to where his office is at in adopting and creating new policies and guidelines as the regulator.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can I go back to item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery?

---Unanimous consent granted

Thanks to the Minister. We certainly have some challenges as an Assembly with attracting the numbers of people we want to have live in the Northwest Territories, considering the environmental scan of the whole government, the economic conditions, the employment, the cost of living in the North and a whole bunch of other social factors that come into play here. I read the document and the Northwest Territories certainly has its work cut out for us. So I guess we’re trying to find that balance with attracting new investment into the North and at the same time sustaining our pristine water and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are some provisions and some programs within government that come into the communities and offer training programs. Minister, I think that’s what I’m asking if you could offer, take the initiative from the fire department, say we would like to come into Fort Good Hope, come into Colville Lake on one of the perfect opportunity dates. Because in Colville Lake, right now they’re all excited because trapping season is here.

When is the most beneficial time to come into the communities of Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake? We’d like to offer these training initiatives...

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree 110 percent with Minister Ramsay’s observation on the Canol Heritage Trail and Doi T’oh Park.

Given that we now have 87 hikers that hike on the Canol Trail, some of the hikers have hiked over 300 to 400 miles on that trail and they’ve been coming consistently. The average hiker walks about 25 miles and it’s said they become very intimate with the trail.

I want to ask the Minister, through his discussions, through what’s happening now with the Canol and the future infrastructure projects, is the Minister willing to look at setting up a management-type of community...