Robert Villeneuve

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that information. Just with regards to the proceeds of the sales of the good meat that’s going to be going down to Lacombe, could the Minister provide some information on any assurances that the proceeds will actually go back to the community and not get gobbled up by the department, or the administration, or the bureaucracy? What kind of reassurances or guarantees can he provide the community in saying that they will get all the proceeds from the sale of the meat? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources just for public record on what the bison recovery management plan that this government intends to follow through on. Maybe the Minister could just provide this House with information on the results, I guess, of the last meeting that we had this afternoon with some community members on how the Hook Lake bison recovery project is going to be handled over the next few months. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the barren-ground caribou management plan has always been a topic of many discussions, Members’ statements and public interest since the strategy was first made public. It may as well continue to be a contentious issue, especially for hunters and trappers here in the NWT.

I would hope that this being the last session until May, that my Member’s statement will be the final gut shot on this issue. Mr. Speaker, the seven immediate actions that the government has come out with in this strategy have to be revisited and rewritten to more accurately reflect some of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just with regards to the depopulation of the herd in general. I know some of the leadership have expressed some dismay in the way the practices are being carried out, the depopulation practices, and they’re saying it’s disrespectful and should not be done in the way that it has been done in the past. Can the Minister maybe inform this House the current practices that the department is exercising in the depopulation are going to be more respectful and just basically more respectful for the animal itself and for the community members? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I realize the sensitivity of the whole issue is reliant on what the reaction of the community is going to be once they receive that letter and the notice of what the government intends on doing, but I think it’s in the public interest. You know, I don’t think it’s any big secret that we should contain or retain any information that I think that the public is entitled to, including residents of Deninu Kue, whether it’s heard here in this House or later tonight at a meeting with their chiefs and the president of the Metis. I think if they did hear it through...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also would like to welcome everybody in the gallery, especially one of my constituents, Wilfred Simon who is one of our community wellness workers. He is also a very active volunteer in our community. He volunteers a lot of his time to making a lot of organizations successful in holding a lot of community events. I am really appreciative for that, and I am sure the community thanks him a lot, too. Thank you.

---Applause

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, caribou management has been a topic of great importance to me of late, but equally important to my constituents is the issue of bison management.

Mr. Speaker, the Hook Lake bison recovery project has been providing food and employment opportunities to my constituents since its conception. The Deninu Kue residents do not want to see this project come to a sad and sudden end, especially after many years of active community participation and the gathering of scientific research this project has provided this government with in order to better manage our wildlife...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, health and social services, as we all know, is a very important and sensitive issue in our smaller communities. When a community’s concerns on health are brought to the attention of a health authority that is not directly involved with the dynamics of the community on a day-to-day basis, sometimes these issues lose some credibility and their sense of importance.

When issues are brought up in a boardroom that comprises of a majority of members who have not lived in a small, remote, aboriginal community and are not aboriginals themselves, many of these unresolved...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am glad I got a commitment from the Minister for that. I look forward to seeing what gets presented to Social Programs.

Still sticking with the medical travel issue, the issue with medical travel escorts has always come to my attention, also. I know the patients themselves don’t really have much say in whether they want an escort or not. It’s basically up to the nurse practitioner or the community health representative to make the call on the escort and then people are coming here, travelling, they are distraught, they don’t know how to handle a lot of the inquiries...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to thank the Minister for his opening comments. I think this year's health budget is basically going to deliver a lot of good changes that people were asking for and have been asking for for a long time.

I just want to mention something about the medical travel concerns that seems like everybody has got an issue with. First off, I know we had the telehealth line and the toll-free nursing line available on a 24-hour basis. I know it's been mentioned to the department before, of whether they're going to establish a medical travel toll-free line that people...