Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I spoke of the need for a new arena in Fort McPherson. As we have a public administrator in the community for the next three years, I can see this project being held back for up to five years.

Will the Minister direct the public administrator to begin consultation with the community to design a new arena that will meet the needs of the community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was about the only comment I had there. I’m glad to hear that we are planning to continue this practice and I look forward to the future projects the communities have.

Will the Minister ensure that we have this agreement in place so that we can have a crew in the community early in the season, like June? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank all those who are working together to battle bullying, to the parents, the teachers, the volunteers and the students, also the RCMP and leaders throughout Canada.

The issue of bullying has come to light for a few years, but in many cases bullying has been going on for many years. As we work together, eventually we will put a stop to bullying. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just briefly, I know in the past it was a huge issue of solid waste but also waste soil and other materials like this in all the communities in the Beaufort-Delta. I know that the communities, at one point, were looking at cost-effective ways to find a way, whether they all pitch in, to bring the costs down to get a lot of this waste soil and everything out of the communities. I know in some communities we have anywhere from 50 to 100 forty-five-gallon barrels of waste oil and other materials like this. If we don’t do anything with this, eventually it is going to leak...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just briefly, I just wanted to touch on the way the department deals with the communities. As I said with the capital projects, it is up to the communities now to develop their own capital plans. From past experience, I really appreciate the way they operate now. I always say I’m glad the New Deal is moving forward. I hope we continue this practice. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since 2007 we have not had a suppression crew in the community of Tsiigehtchic. I brought this up yesterday in Committee of the Whole, but for the record I’d like to ask the Minister, will he work with the community of Tsiigehtchic to enter into an agreement to have a suppression crew in the community this coming summer? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just real quickly here, possibly under conservation planning. As we all know, the Gwich’in have a forest management plan. I’d just like to ask the Minister, as they developed the plan, did they take into account foreign species that have lived here over the last year or two? I’ve noticed a lot of wood coming in from either the Yukon or even further down to Inuvik and distributed to the communities. I just think of our management plan and are these sorts of things taken into consideration.

Quite a while back there was a lot of concern, whether it was pine beetles or other...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a few comments. I know I did provide some earlier, but as I mentioned, the community of Tsiigehtchic once had a suppression crew and the forest fires are a big concern in the coming year with a possible dry season coming again. I think it’s very important that we go back to the past agreement that we had with the community and the department to re-enter that agreement and make sure that we do have a crew on hand this summer to be prepared to transfer to any region that may need their assistance over the summer.

As we discovered last year, as we rushed around...

Just thinking back, you know, one of the reasons I believe that social passing was brought into play here was because of our graduation rates. In the past our graduation rates were much lower. This is no reason to have social passing in our education.

When will the department review and revise the Education Act to deal with social passing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.