Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, June 2, 2014, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, that the Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services devise a system of compensating medical and non-medical travel escorts for their time, with the goal of implementing the system in the fiscal year 2015-16; and further, that the government provide a comprehensive response to this motion within 120 days. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, also I would ask the Minister, given in the time of the ‘70s, what type of authority, what type of working relationship and if it’s possible that when that fracking operation happened at Beaver River. I’m not too sure where exactly it is and what type of impacts we are seeing today in 2014 from that operation even though it is a vertical frack. A frack is a frack is a frack. I want to ask the Minister if that is possible.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to continue on with my question on the issue of hydraulic fracking. I want to ask the Minister of ITI in his capacity with this information.

I spoke to one of the leaders from Fort Liard. The leader had said that they did have some fracking in his region. Have there been any other types of fracking in the Northwest Territories in the last 15 or 20 years?

The technique that I understood from Husky and Conoco’s personnel, and of course our own research in our communities, is that the hydraulic fracking would go down about two kilometres underground. Some of the other fears that people have is that there are only shallow wells that will be hydraulically fracked. That’s not the case in the case in the Sahtu.

Is there any type of method that can reassure the people that when we do hydraulic fracking underground two kilometres, that if there are any type of tracers that you can put in the fluid that shows that the actual chemicals are coming up out...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Environment. Several weeks ago an academic panel of experts put out a 295 page report on the hydraulic fracking in Canada. I want to ask the Minister if his department has taken a look at the report and compared it to what we already have in the Northwest Territories, what we have with the National Energy Board and what we have within our own land claims/water board provisions on this issue. Are we doing most of what the experts believe we need to be looking at or are we above and beyond what the report is stating? Has an analysis been...

In my research specifically in the Sahtu communities, I have noted that the high school students with greater or higher grades needing diplomas or certificates in the Sahtu. Norman Wells has 89 percent of students. Colville Lake is 78; Fort Good Hope, 68; Deline, 62; and Tulita, 58. These are good start points for measurements to say at some period of time that we want to get 100 percent of these students that have a higher than Grade 12 diploma. This leads me to my third question.

I understand from the last session, and I’ve been pressing the Minister very hard on a Sahtu needs assessment...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I talked about the celebration of students who have graduated from universities, colleges and other post-secondary institutions. I want to specifically focus on the Northwest Territories Aurora College graduates. These students have made some huge sacrifices to take their studies in the North, to leave their communities, and they have made sacrifices to the families. They have also done things that I just don’t know how they did it. They take on extra jobs, one or two jobs, study late at night to get a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This morning I read in a newspaper ad, “To be proud of your history, you must know it. Education builds roots to the past that will open pathways to the future.” I thought about this quote because I want to talk about the graduates from Aurora College 2014, students that have undergone extreme conditions of hardship, sacrifice, but with the passion and enthusiasm to get an education for themselves and for their families; students who made the sacrifice to be away from home, away from family for a year, two years, three years, four years; students who know what it means...

Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions would hopefully stay within the confines of this bill here. I’m very interested in hearing what the issues are and the increase to the student financial assistance. Certainly, I spoke earlier in my Member’s statement of the struggles students have attending post-secondary education in colleges or universities. I want to ask the Minister, in regard to this increase, is the Minister, I guess… I’m glad to hear that the students are returning to the Northwest Territories, so is it to say that if a student has a loan and they come back to the Northwest...

Mr. Speaker, I certainly look for that information. I want to ask my last question to the Minister and to his colleague, that the Sahtu people have a land claim, a constitutionally protected document that was negotiated by the guidance of our elders in the Sahtu to take control of our destiny.

What type of approach is set by this department and this government on another protected area that is protected by the Constitution and jurisdiction as how do we work in relationship with land claim organizations that have these types of protection in regards to decision-making authorities on types of...