Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I heard from the seniors that this might be a good thing for them. I’m representing seniors who have come and talked to me and said we needed to be consulted. The cost of living in the Sahtu is high. Everything is high and our dollars don’t stretch as far as down south. We need to be consulted. That is basic respect for our elders and our seniors, they might have an idea that it might have to work out, but they feel that they haven’t been consulted and properly talked to about this issue. That’s the issue. Other ones, that’s good, but I’m speaking specifically for the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I was going to ask some of those questions. I will follow up to some of those questions Mr. Bromley was asking the Minister regarding the resource development RCMP, I guess you can call it.

There is family violence RCMP and now we have resource development RCMP. I hope this position can somehow make its way into where the Sahtu is having some oil and gas activity that increases a whole bunch of other things that RCMP only can deal with.

One of them is that the Norman Wells liquor store restriction has been lifted since February 1st. We have been...

The Minister’s Mackenzie Valley Pipeline office mandate to work with the communities, I like to see them come into the Sahtu and say, okay, community of Tulita and Norman Wells, we need X amount of welders, pipefitters and et cetera, et cetera, when we know for sure the pipeline is coming down. Are we ready? Have we done the assessment? Because right now, like I said, we don’t know, and maybe that’s our strategy, is to continue saying we support the Mackenzie Gas Project. I don’t know. Someone’s got to tell the emperor he has no clothes. We can’t keep saying that.

For me, the big push right now...

Just for clarification, Mr. Chairman, the regional hydro renewable energy solutions funding related to ongoing work, is funding ongoing work with the Aboriginal organizations? He has $100,000 here. Is that going to be divvied up between the Tlicho, Sahtu and Akaitcho? Is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Department of ITI, when you look at the situation in the Northwest Territories, it’s at a place and time where the department and staff and its resources are most important or critical at this time. You have some big projects going on with ITI. You have tourism with world-class spots in the Northwest Territories that people want to see and visit. We have opportunities with tourism right down the Mackenzie Valley. In some places it’s pretty advantageous to put in some tourism projects and some it’s not too good because of the infrastructure. We don’t have quite the...

Thank you. The question I had earlier with the Minister on the NWT Hydro Strategy was on gathering the baseline data required to look at future hydro potential in areas and sites. I wanted to ask the Minister one specific question. For example, the baseline data for fish on the Bear River, have they figured out the types of impact if you put a dam on the Bear River what will the impact be on fish there? I certainly like my fish on the other end of the river here and a lot of people have their fish nets there. I want to know what they have figured out on the impacts of fish.

Thank you. Under page 12-37, Mr. Chair, the repayment of the fur account loan. I see we’re in the bracket here. There’s $1.1 million. Why is that?

Thank you. Is it possible that this Minister and this Cabinet could look at some situations in the Sahtu where he could get a dentist, Adam Dental or out of Inuvik, they could go into the Sahtu, spend a good quality three months, four months in there to look after the people’s teeth? Because right now it’s on an emergency basis. Right now there are no dentists in the Sahtu, not even in Norman Wells. There are people who are not First Nations who are buying airline tickets to go to Inuvik or to Yellowknife to get their teeth looked at. The nurses are handing out antibiotics. People are going...

Can the Minister tell me, when they’re involved in the NWT Hydro Strategy, are they going to be doing various types of baseline data gathering, assessments and doing this for the whole Northwest Territories to indicate where the hydro potential areas are? Like had been mentioned earlier, they’ve done some work in Whati and Lutselk’e and Bear River, and I want to show where the other areas are. Will this information that they’re collecting all be wrapped up into a Hydro Strategy? I make the assumption on the presumption that the dollars will be on target to say well, this is the area that...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The $550,000.