Norman Yakeleya

Can the Minister make a good case argument to the federal government that this $500 million can be tied to the development, and possibly look at the Sahtu as being zoned or designated as a special economic area that the federal government can release this $500 million?

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of ITI a question. Yesterday he talked about oil and gas exploration in the Sahtu that potentially could happen in the Good Hope, Tulita and Norman Wells area. What is his department doing with regard to dealing with the potential impact of the recent interest of the exploration in that area?

I would ask the Minister if he would have a serious discussion with the Minister of MACA to put together some form of a plan or outline and come back to committee to see that they get the support to go ahead or he could look within the government to make this happen. The survival of our people is at the brink of having our elders tell the youth what needs to happen in terms of continuing on with a good, healthy life in the Northwest Territories. I ask the Minister if he would come back with some form of discussion plan or some kind of plan and say this is what we want to do to pass on the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about a leader, the Great Chief Sitting Bull. One of his quotes was, “Lt’s put our minds together and see what kind of life we can make for our children.” Sitting Bull was a very spiritual man, just like our elders in the Sahtu and down the Mackenzie Valley. I wanted to ask the Minister, because the elders are very concerned about the way things are going today, that the land is changing, our children are changing, and our children will die if we do not wake up and start talking to our children. I want to ask the Minister of Health in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m reminded by one of our great leaders from the United States, Chief Sitting Bull, he said, at one of his council meetings to his chiefs, “Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.” I was reminded of that a couple of days ago when I had a meeting with the elders in Fort Good Hope, who sat around the table one morning and they were very, very concerned about our youth today.

Mrs. Groenewegen spoke a little bit about what the elders were talking about: the diet in the younger people with pop and chips and chocolate bars and fast food...

The increase of the development of the Sahtu, you know we’re early in the development. We are spending just over $630 million in exploration. Of course, there are a lot of social impacts that are going to happen with that money and the development we are talking about today. We need that money.

I want to ask the minister if he can work with his colleagues to make a strong argument to the federal government so that they can release some of the dollars, all of these dollars to the Northwest Territories to help us with the social impacts of oil and gas development. We need that. Can I ask the...

The Minister and I did attend the exploration readiness session. One of the issues that the communities talked about was the past Mackenzie Gas Project Socio-economic Development Fund of $500 million that the federal government was holding to deal with the impacts.

I want to ask the Minister, is there any way that he’s working with the Sahtu leadership to ask the federal government if they would release the Sahtu portion to deal with the interest of the oil and gas exploration that could and is happening in the Sahtu region regarding some of the issues we are talking about today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I asked the government if they would put the challenge, the same as us, out to our communities, talk to our youth right through this forum right now, in this time, and ask if they would help us get help in our region to support the Minister and themselves and to put a challenge out there so that the youth can also help with this forum. We don’t have to do things for them. Let them do things for themselves. I put the challenge out there.

Would the Minister put some form of challenge to the people, along with us to our young people, that if they want to live, they should...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The people I spoke to about the surgeries in the Stanton Hospital were very concerned because there were a number of incidents that indicated that these patients left the hospital a little too early and their recovery wasn’t quite healing up, or somewhere along the line it brought them back to Stanton. It cost a lot of money and it caused a lot of heartache.

I want to ask the Minister, within Stanton I’m speaking about, when people have these surgeries that they are fully informed when the doctor is going to release them. However, they have the right, also, to say we...

Thanks for the clarification from the Minister. I’ve been told, when I went to Fort Good Hope, that there are several patients from the Sahtu that had surgery in Yellowknife’s Stanton Hospital and they were released based on the clinical decision by the doctor of when they came back to their home communities. Because of the operation and because of the sensitivity of it, they were released a little too early and then they had to come back to the Stanton Hospital for some more medication and recovery.

I want to ask the Minister what assurance he can give me that these patients, once they leave...